Gene Therapy for Cardiovascular Disease

The last decade has seen substantial advances in the development of gene therapy strategies and vector technology for the treatment of a diverse number of diseases, with a view to translating the successes observed in animal models into the clinic. Perhaps the overwhelming drive for the increase in vascular gene transfer studies is the current lack of successful long-term pharmacological treatments for complex cardiovascular diseases. The increase in cardiovascular disease to epidemic proportions has also led many to conclude that drug therapy may have reached a plateau in its efficacy and that gene therapy may represent a realistic solution to a long-term problem. Here, we discuss gene delivery approaches and target diseases.