Human gene therapy for lung cancer

Lung cancer is one of the leading causes of cancer death in the world. The high mortality rate for lung cancer results from the absence of standard therapeutic strategies. Recent advances in molecular biology have demonstrated that multistep genetic alterations are involved in the carcinogenesis of human lung cancer. Human gene therapy has become a reality with the development of effective techniques for delivering the gene to the target cells. The efficacy of gene therapy for various types of genetic disease now being evaluated in clinical trials. These findings led us to develop a novel gene therapeutic strategy for human lung cancer that could either inhibit the oncogene expression or replace the tumor suppressor gene by using recombinant, replication-defective viral vectors. The article reviews recent highlights in this rapidly evolving field.