Gene Therapy for Cancer Treatment

Trials of gene therapy for inherited conditions have captured the most 

IMMUNE-BASED CANCER GENE THERAPY STRATEGIES 

Why do you think there are so many gene therapy trials for cancer  

The large number and types of gene therapy trials for cancers reflect both the potential opportunities to develop treatments and the fact that a single strategy will not likely work for aU forms of cancer. 

A number of different chemical modifications of the basic RNA antisense have shown promise in the lab and in animal test systems, 

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Cross D, BurmesterJ (2006). Gene therapy for cancer treatment past, present, and future. ClinMedRes 4 218-227. 

D. Nafziger, J. Pegg, D. Paielli, S. Brown, K. Barton, M. Lu, E. Aguilar-Cordova, J.H. Kim, Phase I study of replication-competent adenovirus-mediated double suicide gene therapy for the treatment of locally recurrent prostate cancer. Cancer Res. 62 (2002) 4968-4976. 

Adenoviruses are used for the treatment of cystic fibrosis and cancer by gene therapy. For the treatment of cystic fibrosis, aerosolization has been used to deliver the gene for cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance epithelial cell surface. However, many hurdles still exist in this therapeutic procedure. 

B. E. Huber, C. A. Richards, and T. A. Krenitsky, Retroviral-mediated gene therapy for the treatment of hepatocellular carcinoma an innovative approach for cancer therapy, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 88 8039 (1991). 

Ko S C, Cheon J, Kao C, et al. (1996). Osteocalcin promoter-based toxic gene therapy for the treatment of osteosarcoma in experimental models. Cancer Res. 56 4614-4619. 

Hundreds of research studies (clinical trials) are under way to test gene therapy as a treatment for genetic conditions, cancer, and HIV/AIDS. If you are interested in participating in a clinical trial, talk with your doctor or a genetics professional about how to participate. 

Recent efforts have focused on using these highly regulated gene expression systems in gene therapies for disease. Applications include modification of stem cells (Moutsatsos et al., 2001), treatment of retinal diseases (Dejneka et al., 2001) and immunotherapy for cancer (Nakagawa et al., 2001). 

HVJ liposomes have been effective for the treatment of cancers. Glioblastoma is a severe type of brain tumor associated with rapid and extensive metastasis, and a gene therapy for disseminated glioblastoma is desirable. All mice injected with glioblastoma died, and the survival time was dependent on the number of cancer cells injected. After dissemination of mouse glioblastoma cells into mouse... 

The encapsulation of hepatocytes for a bioartificial liver, and cell therapy for the treatment of other hormone deficiencies or neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer s and Parkinson s, are also under investigation. Additional examples of cell encapsulation in polymer-polymer coacervates include non-autologous gene therapy,blood substitutes as well as the treatment of prostate cancer. Pharmaceutical applications of microcapsules encompass, in addition, trans-dermal drug delivery and protein delivery such as is required in anti-inflammatory therapy for arthritis. 

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