Hardy, John George (2016) Organic electronic materials for gene delivery. In: Engineering of nanobiomaterials. Elsevier, pp. 119-144. ISBN 9780323417341
Full text not available from this repository.Abstract
Gene therapy has the potential to treat various diseases by altering levels of protein expression, or correcting genetic mutations. A prerequisite of effective gene is the delivery of polynucleic acids (e.g., DNA, RNA) to a patient’s cells which can be achieved by a variety of means, including technological (e.g., electroporation), viruses (which are nature’s gene delivery vectors) or non-viral vectors (e.g., lipids, nanoparticles, polymers). The focus of this chapter is the use of organic electronic materials (i.e., fullerenes, graphenes and conjugated polymers) as non-viral gene delivery vectors and their potential for application as novel theranostic devices. These represent an exciting new class of non-viral vectors that are at the frontier of novel approaches towards gene therapy.