Gene therapy for stomach cancer?

A team of US researchers has developed an oral gene therapy treatment that appears to prevent and cure stomach tumours in laboratory mice. The study, carried out by scientists at Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia, was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The researchers carried out their experiments on mice that lack a gene known as FHIT, which makes them prone to developing stomach cancer. They exposed all the mice in the study to a cancer-causing chemical for four weeks, then treated some with an oral dose of the FHIT gene. All of the untreated mice, but less than 50 per cent of the mice given the FHIT gene, developed tumours.

The scientists were surprised by the success of their approach: 'We expected differences, but not so dramatic' said team leader Dr Kay Huebner. 'We knew we could kill cancer cells in the laboratory, but we didn't know if the viruses [used to deliver the gene] would get eaten up by the stomach juices'.

Although alterations in the FHIT gene are implicated in a number of different cancers, Dr Huebner says that scientists will have to develop different techniques to deliver genes to areas of the body such as the lung, kidney and liver. But gene therapy could one day be used to prevent some types of cancer in humans or even to treat the disease in early stages.

Meanwhile, the US Recombinant DNA Advisory Committee (RAC) has just approved a policy that requires publication of detailed data on serious adverse effects in human gene therapy trials, reports last week's Science.