Research highlights from the International Journalof Nanomedicine 2014

Sarah H Mian, Neel A Patel, Farina Shah, Sateesh B Arja, Farooq A ShiekhDepartment of Basic Medical Sciences, Avalon University School of Medicine, Curaçao, Netherlands AntillesCan nanocarriers conquer gene therapy?Evaluation of: Magalhães M, Farinha D, Pedroso de Lima MC, Faneca H. Increased gene delivery efficiency and specificity of a lipid-based nanosystem incorporating a glycolipid. Int J Nanomedicine. 2014;9:4979-4989. Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is a devastating disease that makes up 70%-85% of all cases of liver cancer, affecting millions of people worldwide.1 Unfortunately, HCC is aggressive and deadly; patients typically live for only 6 to 20 months after diagnosis, highlighting the dire need for new effective therapies. Although gene therapy has the potential to offer new biologically based medicines, the efficient, selective, and safe delivery of DNA- or RNA-based drugs to target cells including hepatocytes is still a major limiting factor to the broad applications of gene therapy in cancer diseases.2-4