Abstract
Gene therapy is a novel approach to treat, cure, or ultimately prevent disease by changing the expression of a person's genes. Gene therapy is in its infancy, and current gene therapy is primarily experimental, with most human clinical trials only in the research stages. During the past decade, clinical trials of gene therapy have been performed in about three thousand patients in the USA. Most of these clinical studies reported therapeutic efficacy results that fall for short of initial expectations. However, recent improvements in gene transduction may be efficacious in gene therapy for some diseases. Moreover, more recent advances in genetic technology may make gene therapy available for cell therapy or tissue engineering using stem cells.
