Terry Flotte was invited to speak at the MEC by Mark Klempner. Terry clearly and succinctly described the now 47 year history of the study of Adeno- associated virus biology and its application to gene therapy. He also described the unique attributes of the virus that made it suitable for usage for this treatment modality. He described both the field’s development and his involvement in the championing of this application of this technology to the treatment of patients with cystic fibrosis and alpha-1 anti-trypsin deficiency. He clearly explained how this involved both the ups and down of the early years and subsequent resurgence of the use of AAV vectors in clinical gene therapy trials. To this end, Terry pointed out how the AAV vector itself is now an approved commercial product in the form of Glybera which carries the lipoprotein lipase gene to treat patients with lipoprotein lipase deficiency at an estimated cost of around one million dollars per patient.