This study shows that VEGF may have therapeutic importance to enhance the efficiency of viral gene delivery to the heart, as well as to other target organs.
PMID: 19782262 [PubMed - in process] (Source: Journal of Cardiology)

(Source: NIH Research Matters from the National Institutes of Health (NIH))

Highlights from ScienceNOW this week include antplant ants that branch out, the solar system’s coldest spot, gene therapy that gives monkeys color vision, and a magnetized gas that points to new physics. (Source: Science: Current Issue)

Human Gene Therapy , Vol. 0, No. 0. (Source: Human Gene Therapy)

In conclusion, nonviral methods are attractive for an improvement of the gene therapy and our protocol could provide useful indications for in vivo gene therapy applications. Microsc. Res. Tech., 2009. © 2009 Wiley-Liss, Inc. (Source: Microscopy Research and Technique)

Oxford, UK – 22 September 2009: Oxford BioMedica (LSE:
OXB), a leading gene therapy company, today announces interim
results from its Phase III TRIST study of TroVax, a therapeutic
cancer vaccine, in renal cancer. Although TroVax did not show… (Source: Drugs.com – Clinical Trials)

Researchers in the Memory Disorders Program at Georgetown University Medical Center are now recruiting volunteers for a national gene therapy trial – the first study of its kind for the treatment of patients with dementia due to Alzheimer’s disease. The phase II study examines the safety and possible benefits of CERE-110. (Source: Health News from Medical News Today)

In conclusion, cell-based HGF gene therapy decreased the number of cells required for neovascularization. This strategy can be an effective angiogenic therapy. (Source: AJP: Heart and Circulatory Physiology)

The small leucine-rich proteoglycan decorin is a natural inhibitor of transforming growth factor-β (TGF-β) and exerts antifibrotic effects in heart and to stimulate skeletal muscle regeneration. We investigated decorin’s chronic effects on postinfarction cardiac remodeling and dysfunction. Myocardial infarction (MI) was induced in mice by left coronary artery ligation. An adenoviral vector encoding human decorin (Ad. CAG-decorin) was then injected into the hindlimbs on day 3 post-MI (control, Ad.CAG-LacZ). Four weeks post-MI, the decorin-treated mice showed significant mitigation of the left ventricular dilatation and dysfunction seen in control mice. Although infarct size did not differ between the two groups, the infarcted wall thickness was greater and the segmental length of …

Chronic granulomatous disease (CGD) patients have impaired nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate (NADPH) oxidase function, resulting in poor antimicrobial activity of neutrophils, including the inability to generate neutrophil extracellular traps (NETs). Invasive aspergillosis is the leading cause of death in patients with CGD; it is unclear how neutrophils control Aspergillus species in healthy persons. The aim of this study was to determine whether gene therapy restores NET formation in CGD by complementation of NADPH oxidase function, and whether NETs have antimicrobial activity against Aspergillus nidulans. Here we show that reconstitution of NET formation by gene therapy in a patient with CGD restores neutrophil elimination of A nidulans conidia and hyphae and is associated with…