This has application for cancer therapy, and it also can be used in treating other diseases. For example, when you do a balloon angioplasty to open a heart artery, you end up injuring the cell wall. In the healing process, the cells sometime proliferate and block the artery again. What we would like to do is introduce a gene that will stop this cell proliferation and prevent the artery from re-blockage. The potential is absolutely enormous.
Every common disease is currently the subject of some study developing a new gene-therapy approach.
And gene therapy can substitute for drug therapy in virtually any area you choose. Some have predicted that 20 percent of the world's pharmaceuticals will be gene-therapy agents by the year 2010. At Mayo, we are going to concentrate on cancer, heart disease and infectious disease initially since that is where we have the most expertise. But there are no limits to what can be considered. Most of the gene therapies that have been done to date have been like fireworks that fizzle and don't go off.