Autologous And Cancer Stem Cell Gene Therapy (Progress in Gene Therapy) (Progres

Roger Bertolotti, Keiya Ozawa, "Autologous And Cancer Stem Cell Gene Therapy (Progress in Gene Therapy) (Progress in Gene Therapy)"

Publisher: World Scientific Publishing Company | ISBN 10: 9812775862 | 2007| PDF | 480 pages | 15 MB

Stem cells provide for life-long cell replacement in tissues and organs, and have inherent homing abilities that are critical in therapeutic applications. Stem cells are also the driving force of cancer where genetic/epigenetic alterations culminate in tumorigenesis either in tissue stem cells or in some of their derivatives. As a rare subset of the tumor, cancer stem cells are the only drive of tumor initiation/propagation. Autologous and cancer stem cells are thus the key targets of 1) long-term and transient-regenerative/epigenetic gene therapy and 2) of recurrence-free anticancer therapy, respectively. While cancer stem cell gene therapy still needs time to accomplish, autologous stem cells have been instrumental in the first unequivocal successes for gene therapy whereby ex vivo retrovirally corrected hematopoietic stem cells have been returned to the patients.