Gene therapy to protect haematopoietic cells from cytotoxic cancer drugs

One of the most important complications of cancer chemotherapy is the toxic effect that the drugs have on normal tissues - particularly the bone marrow. Several gene-therapy vectors have been developed with the aim of expressing drug-resistance genes specifically in bone-marrow stem cells, so protecting them from chemotherapeutics. The feasibility of this approach has been established in animal model systems, and recent advances in the design of gene-therapy vectors offer promise for future clinical applications.