Satish Kalanjeri

Gene therapy in interventional pulmonology: Interferon gene delivery with focus on thoracic malignancies

Gene therapy is a promising treatment for a variety of human diseases—particularly for malignancies—but has not been implemented into routine clinical use because sufficient delivering of therapeutic genes to effectively kill large numbers of cancer cells has proved daunting. Recently, researchers have been focusing on a method called immunogene therapy, which transfers genetic material—such as genes encoding for interferons—to trigger the patient’s own immune system to fight the cancer. Mesothelioma is a particularly good target for gene therapy, because no individual treatment (surgery, chemotherapy, and/or radiation) has proven efficacious, and because mesothelioma tends to remain localized until the late stages of the disease. Even immuno-gene therapy is limited in its ability to destroy large tumors, which is why researchers are investigating combination approaches that combine traditional therapies such as surgery and chemotherapy with immunotherapy.