British gene therapy specialist Oxford BioMedica (OXB.L) said on Tuesday it would have all four of its eye disease drugs in clinics by the end of next year, and its cash burn would slow in the second half of 2010. The company also posted a net loss of 2.9 million pounds ($4.5 million) for the six months to end-June, against a 0.5 million loss for the same period a year ago, on revenue of 5.3 million pounds.

The liver is an exceptional organ, not only because of its unique anatomical and physiological characteristics, but also because of its unlimited regenerative capacity. Unfolding of the molecular mechanisms that govern liver regeneration has allowed researchers to exploit them to augment liver regeneration.

Matrix (M) protein mutants of vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV), such as rM51R-M virus, are attractive candidates as oncolytic viruses for tumor therapies because of their capacity to selectively target cancer cells. The effectiveness of rM51R-M virus as an antitumor agent for the treatment of breast cancer was assessed by determining the ability of rM51R-M virus to infect and kill breast cancer cells in vitro and in vivo.

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the second most common malignancy in Asia, with a 5-year survival rate of less than 5% due to high recurrence after surgery and resistance to chemotherapy. A variety of therapeutic interventions to treat HCC, particularly gene therapy, have recently been investigated in tumor model systems to provide a more complete understanding of hepatocarcinogenesis and effectively design therapeutic strategies to treat this disease.

Scientists in Denmark discover possible cure for epilepsy. Hopes of a new cure for temporal lap epilepsy have risen following a breakthrough made by a researcher at Copenhagen University.

Metastasis-associated protein 1 (MTA1) is overexpressed in many forms of cancer types but its role in prostate cancer (PCa) progression and metastasis has not been explored. In this study, we addressed the functional and biological role of MTA1 in PCa.

Human gene therapy company Amsterdam Molecular Therapeutics (AMT) (Euronext: AMT) announced today that the Marketing Authorisation Application (MAA) for Glybera remains on schedule following meetings with the European Medicine Agency (EMA) concerning the Day 120 List of Questions.

In one of only two studies of its kind, a study from researchers at Tufts University School of Medicine and the Sackler School of Graduate Biomedical Sciences at Tufts demonstrates that non-viral gene therapy can delay the onset of some forms of eye disease and preserve vision. The team developed nanoparticles to deliver therapeutic genes to the retina and found that treated mice temporarily retained more eyesight than controls.

The recent approvals of anticancer therapeutic agents targeting the histone deacetylases and DNA methyltransferases have highlighted the important role that epigenetics plays in human diseases, and suggested that the factors controlling gene expression are novel drug targets. Protein arginine deiminase 4 (PAD4) is one such target because its effects on gene expression parallel those observed for the histone deacetylases.

Parent Project Muscular Dystrophy (PPMD) has awarded Nationwide Children’s Hospital $600,000 to conduct clinical testing of a promising gene therapy technique for muscle disease. PPMD is the largest non-profit organization in the US and is focused on finding a cure for Duchenne muscular dystrophy, the most common form of childhood muscular dystrophy.

There are several diseases for which gene transfer therapy to the cerebellum might be practicable. In these studies, we used recombinant Tag-deleted SV40-derived vectors (rSV40s) to study gene delivery targeting the cerebellum. These vectors transduce neurons and microglia very effectively in vitro and in vivo, and so we tested them to evaluate gene transfer to the cerebellum in vivo.