Our understanding of how radiation kills normal and tumour cells has been based on an
intimate knowledge of the direct induction of DNA damage and its cellular consequences …

Antitumor suicide gene therapy is one of the emerging strategies against cancer. It consists
of the introduction into cancer cells of a gene capable of converting a nontoxic prodrug into a …

Biodegradable polymeric nanoparticles have the potential to be safer alternatives to viruses
for gene delivery; however, their use has been limited by poor efficacy in vivo. In this work …

Antibody-drug conjugates (ADC) represent a distinct family of chemoimmunotherapy agents.
ADCs are composed of monoclonal antibodies conjugated to cytotoxic payloads via …

Gene therapy of cancer is a novel approach with the potential to selectively eradicate tumour
cells, whilst sparing normal tissue from damage. In particular, gene‐directed enzyme …

The appearance of multicellular organisms imposed the development of several
mechanisms for cell-to-cell communication, whereby different types of cells coordinate their …

To realize the full scientific and clinical potential of human embryonic stem cell (hESC)-
cardiomyocytes, strategies to overcome the high degree of heterogeneity of differentiated …

Among the broad array of genes that have been evaluated for tumor therapy, those
encoding prodrug activation enzymes are especially appealing as they directly complement …

Although 5-fluorouracil (FU) was first introduced in 1957, it remains an essential part of the
treatment of a wide range of solid tumors. FU has antitumor activity against epithelial …

This review focuses on the prodrugs used in suicide gene therapy. These prodrugs need to
satisfy a number of criteria. They must be efficient and selective substrates for the activating …