A Tribute to Barrie J. Carter.

I first became aware of Barrie Carter's pioneering work on adeno-associated virus (AAV) nearly four decades ago, when I started my postdoctoral training in the laboratory of Ken Berns, yet another stalwart among what used to be a small group of individuals who were interested in AAV. Barrie also deserves accolades for having recruited Terry Flotte to his laboratory, and Terry has the distinct honor of having performed the very first Phase I clinical trial with a rAAV vector. I joined Barrie's small lab in the summer of 1991, where Roland Owens was studying Rep protein interactions with the inverted terminal repeat (ITR), and Terry Flotte was putting a CFTR transgene into the AAV vector. The first AAV vector to be injected into a human eye was manufactured by Barrie's company, Targeted Genetics Corporation - a gene therapy company that was ahead of its time. [Extracted from the article]