Clinical development of gene therapy: results and lessons from recent successes.

ABSTRACT: Therapeutic gene transfer holds the promise of providing lasting therapies and even cures for diseases that were previously untreatable or for which only temporary or suboptimal treatments were available. For some time, clinical gene therapy was characterized by some impressive but rare examples of successes and also several setbacks. However, effective and long-lasting treatments are now being reported from gene therapy trials at an increasing pace. Positive outcomes have been documented for a wide range of genetic diseases (including hematological, immunological, ocular, and neurodegenerative and metabolic disorders) and several types of cancer. Examples include restoration of vision in blind patients, eradication of blood cancers for which all other treatments had failed, correction of

SUBMITTER: Kumar SR 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4879992 | biostudies-literature | 2016

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature