This is the first use of heat-induced gene therapy in animal studies. Temperatures needed to turn on this gene therapy product can be achieved in mice and humans, with little danger of heat damage to normal tissues, the researchers said. This gene was expressed 680,000 times more with heat than without in cell studies. The research was funded by the National Cancer Institute, Celsion Corp. and the German Research Council. In gene therapy, a virus is used to deliver the therapeutic gene to the cells.
Viruses normally force infected cells to express the viruses' genes.
Gene therapy takes advantage of this ability. A gene with therapeutic potential is substituted into the virus' DNA, and infected host cells then take up and express the therapeutic gene rather than the virus's own genes. There are two basic strategies for delivering therapeutic genes only to the tissues that need them. One is to inject the modified virus into an artery or vein that immediately enters the target, such as the liver. For their studies, the Duke scientists selectively targeted the therapeutic gene using hyperthermia, a method that has demonstrated no long-term side effects in more than 20 years of human clinical trials.