Prospects In Genetic-Based Cancer Therapies

Progress in evaluating the potential of oligonucleotide-based and genetic therapeutics is continuing at a number of research institutions and biotechnology companies, and has reached the stage of in vivo evaluation in man. These discoveries have provided new targets on which strategies for genetic modification can be focused, according to a presentation at the 86th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research in Toronto, Canada, by Albert Deisseroth from the Anderson Cancer Center, Washington, USA.

The most frequently used method of genetic modification in cancer treatments so far has been the retrovirus, said Dr Deisseroth. The advantages of the retrovirus is that it can be used to modify permanently the target cells and the technology exists to produce sufficiently large quantities of the virus which are free of any replication-competent viral particles.

However, noted Dr Deisseroth, there are two major obstacles to the implementation of new programs of genetic therapy. These are that the target cell must replicate to enable the virus to be integrated into the cells, and the cells which do exhibit this behaviour are very low in frequency in the body.