Development of novel technology of DDS for gene therapy.

In the near future, not only "systemic pharmacokinetics" but also "intracellular pharmacokinetics" seems to be important in Drug Delivery System (DDS) research for gene therapy. Beyond the basic philosophy of DDS of "delivering the optimal amounts of drugs to a target site", it is now necessary to "express the gene (as a drug) efficiently in a target cell for a required period" in gene therapy. To achieve these objectives, vectors for introducing the gene into the target cell are being improved, and techniques to efficiently express the transgene and to regulate the transgene expression are being developed. DDS is expected to play a large part in achieving this goal. Here, we review a novel DDS technology to satisfy these criteria.