Current Gene Therapy - Volume 3, Issue 4, 2003

Gene transfer vectors based on the human adeno-associated virus serotype 2 (AAV-2) have been developed and tested in pre-clinical studies for almost 20 years, and are currently being evaluated in clinical trials. So far, all these studies have provided evidence that AAV-2 vectors possess many properties making them very attractive for therapeutic gene delivery to humans, such as a lack of pathogenicity or toxicity, and t Read More

Damage of articular cartilage is a frequent clinical problem and is commonly considered to be irreversible. Fullthickness defects may lead to the formation of fibrous repair tissue of minor mechanical quality, while partial-thickness lesions hardly show any repair response. Surgical approaches often fail to restore the articular surface, facing the problem of incomplete chondrogenesis or rapid degradation of the repair tissue. Ho Read More

Radiotherapy is, after surgery, the most widely used form of cancer treatment but the main limitation of radiation treatment is damage to normal tissues. This may be overcome by targeted radiotherapy - the selective delivery to malignant deposits of cytotoxic radionuclides bound to tumour-seeking agents. Several gene transfer techniques are being evaluated which combine gene therapy and targeted radiotherapy, renderin Read More

The hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection is a public health problem worldwide, particularly in East Asia. The current therapy of HBV infection is mostly based on chemical agents and cytokines that have been shown to provide limited efficacy and are also toxic to the human body. Gene therapy is a new therapeutic strategy against HBV infection, involving the transmission of gene drugs into liver cells by specific delivery systems and Read More

Virus-mediated oncolysis is a rapidly growing field with the potential to dramatically alter the future of cancer therapy. Replication-selective viruses are superior to non-replicating vectors in several aspects, such as the amplification of the initial low-dose viral inoculum up to 103-104-fold, lateralization into neighboring cells, introduction of novel cell killing mechanisms, and a potential for a safety profile. However, due to th Read More