前沿科技及其它

This review deals with the avian paramyxovirus Newcastle disease virus (NDV) and describes properties that explain its oncolytic activity, its tumor-selective replication behavior, and its immune-stimulatory capacity with human cells. The strong interferon response of norm ...

A large number of oncolytic viral vectors are currently under clinical development for cancer therapy. Herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1) has demonstrated particular promise in this field, showing genetically engineered selective tumor replication and cytotoxicity in a wide vari ...

We performed a clinical trial of gene therapy in patients with recurrent glioblastoma multiforme based on retroviral vector-mediated combined delivery of interleukin-2 and thymidine kinase of herpes simplex virus (HSV)-1. Treatment consisted of intratumor injection of retro ...

Tumor immunotherapy depends on the interactions between the host, the tumor, and the immune system. Recent data suggests that priming of antigen-specific T cells alone may not be adequate for mediating regression of established tumors because of the immune inhibitory influences within ...

Historically, limited results have been observed with immunity in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). In the last 5 years, however, several immune-stimulating products have demonstrated enhancement of tumor antigen recognition through activation of dendritic cell-involved p ...

Developments in gene therapy, cell therapy, and DNA vaccination require a pharmaceutical gene vector that, on one hand, fulfils the properties to express the encoded information—preferably at the right place, time, and level and, on the other hand, is safe and productive under good manufactu ...

Gene therapy is becoming increasingly relevant for the treatment of prominent human diseases. Viral vectors are currently used in more than 50% of the gene therapy clinical trials, most of them aimed at cancer diseases. Clearly, the increasing needs of high-quality viral preparations requ ...

Cancer gene transfer is a relatively novel intervention strategy. In part because of this novelty, trials often present greater uncertainties than those investigating more conventional approaches. In the following review, I examine how this greater uncertainty might affect how cl ...

Gene therapy products are highly regulated, therefore moving a promising candidate from the laboratory into the clinic can present unique challenges. Success can only be achieved by proper planning and communication within the clinical development team, as well as consultation with ...

Oligonucleotides with guanosine-rich (G-rich) sequences often have unusual physical and biological properties, including resistance to nucleases, enhanced cellular uptake, and high affinity for particular proteins. Furthermore, we have found that certain G-rich oligon ...

Aptamers are in vitro evolved molecules that bind to target proteins with high affinity and specificity by adapting three-dimensional structures upon binding. Because cancer cells exhibit the activation of signaling pathways that are not usually activated in normal cells, RNA apta ...

Phosphorodiamidate morpholino oligomers (PMO), which have a neutral chemistry, are extensively being used as tools for selective inhibition of gene expression in cell culture models and are currently in human clinical trials. PMO oligomers possess a unique structure, in which the deo ...

Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) can arise de novo or progress from a lower to higher grade and can possess a series of genetic alterations and dynamic progressions, which have been correlated with the molecular pathology of GBM. Epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) has been shown to be overex ...

Members of the tumor necrosis factor (TNF) superfamily influence a variety of immunological functions, including cellular activation, proliferation, and death, upon interaction with a corresponding superfamily of receptors. Whereas interest in the apoptosis-inducing mo ...

Combination chemotherapy has been shown to be more effective than single-agent therapy for many types of cancer, but both are known to induce drug resistance in cancer cells. Two major culprits in the development of this drug resistance are nuclear factor-κB (NF-κB) and the multidrug resistan ...

This chapter illustrates our protocol for in vivo biopanning using T7 bacteriophage libraries for the purpose of selecting recombinant peptides for the tumor-specific delivery of radiosensitizers to radiation-inducible antigens within tumor neovasculature. Our goal is to d ...

New genes useful in suicide gene therapy are those encoding toxins such as plant ribosome-inactivating proteins (RIPs), which can irreversibly block protein synthesis, triggering apoptotic cell death. Plasmids expressing a cytosolic saporin (SAP) gene from common soapwort (Sap ...

Innovative approaches to induce a strong immune response are key to the success of immunotherapy. Dendritic cells (DCs) are professional antigen-presenting cells (APCs) equipped with co-stimulatory, adhesion, and major histocompatibility complex (MHC) molecules needed for i ...

An antitumor DNA vaccine is a bacterial DNA plasmid that encodes the complementary DNA (cDNA) of a tumor antigen. When injected into recipients, antitumor DNA vaccines have been shown to elicit both humoral and cellular immunity against the encoded tumor antigen. These vaccines represent a r ...

Gene-based immunization with transgenic DNA vectors expressing tumor-associated antigens (TAA), cytokines, or chemokines, alone or in combination, provides an attractive approach to increase the cytotoxic T cell immunity against various cancer diseases. With this consider ...