Gene therapy is an innovative and exciting new branch of medicine. Despite the fact that a human disease has yet to be cured using this therapeutic approach, numerous clinical trials are taking place around the world based on encouraging preclinical data.
Objective:
The aim of this review is to bring the reader up to date with this rapidly advancing field and to highlight the technical advances that must occur before gene therapy will become common practice in dermatology.
Methods:
The current level of gene delivery technology restricts the applications. The advantages and disadvantages of viral and nonviral gene delivery systems are discussed.
Results:
Considerable advances are being made in the areas of cancer immunotherapy and vaccines. Of particular importance to the treatment of skin diseases will be the isolation and ex vivo manipulation of epidermal stem cells, the development of skin-specific regulatory sequences for gene expression, and the formulation of gene delivery systems suitable for systemic administration.
Conclusions:
In general, skin and keratinocytes are considered to be good targets for gene transfer applications, and several diseases have been identified as potential candidates for treatment in the near future.
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