Current Strategies for Cancer Gene Therapy

Cancer is one of the most lethal diseases in the world. Traditional methods for cancer treatment are surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy. Early stage cancer patients may be cured by radical surgery and (or) chem(radio-)therapy. However, advanced cancer patients usually suffer from chem(radio-)resistance or metastasis, most of which can not be controlled by current therapy. Furthermore, traditional chem(radio-)therapy will bring patients with severe side effects as they not only kill cancer cells, but also normal cells. Many investigators believe the potential to make great progress in cancer treatment lies in understanding the molecular biology of cancer and exploiting effective agents targeting abnormal molecules which regulate the growth and metastasis of tumor (Ku and Ilson, 2010). This is called targeting therapy, which can selectively kill cancer cells with minor side effects. Effective targeting therapy lies on good targets chosen and the methods used to deliver targets into the tumor mass safely and efficiently. During the past decades, various important tumor targets were exploited.