Current Gene Therapy - Volume 6, Issue 5, 2006

Acute myeloid leukaemia (AML) is the most common form of leukaemia in adults. Although of the order of 75-85% of patients will achieve complete remission after induction chemotherapy, long-term survival is still relatively low. Despite the progress in the rational design of drugs in disorders such as chronic myeloid leukaemia, AML lacks a single specific pathogenomic event to act as a drug target. Interferon regulatory factor Read More

Recent advances in stem cell biology and gene therapy technology have provided the great potential of adult stem cells for therapeutic use in regeneration of lost tissue due to diseases including cancer, trauma, and even caries. Dental pulp tissues harbor mesenchymal stem/progenitor cells and have potential to regenerate and/or repair dentin-pulp complex after injury such as caries. There are two main methods, in viv Read More

An efficient and safe method to deliver DNA in vivo is a requirement for several purposes, such as study of gene function and gene therapy applications. Among the different non-viral delivery methods currently under investigation, in vivo DNA electrotransfer has proven to be one of the most efficient and simple. This technique is a physical method of gene delivery consisting in local application of electric pulses after DNA Read More

To be maximally effective, therapy of cancer must be directed against both the resting stem cells and the proliferating cells of the cancer. The cell populations of both normal and cancer tissues consist of resting stem cells, proliferating transit-amplifying cells, terminally differentiating cells and dying (apoptotic) cells. The difference between normal tissue renewal and growth of cancers is that some of the transit-amplifying cells i Read More

Gene therapy is a promising strategy for the treatment of several inherited and acquired human diseases. Several vector platforms exist for the delivery of therapeutic nucleic acids into cells. Vectors based on viruses are very efficient at introducing gene constructs into cells, but their use has been associated with genotoxic effects of vector integration or immunological complications due to repeated administration in vivo. Non Read More