Delivery of genetic materials into the target tissues or cells via electric pulses for
treating or preventing diseases is referred to as electroporation gene therapy. The
focus of this book is to provide hands-on protocols for, and in-depth knowledge on,
nonviral delivery of genetic materials, including DNA, oligo-DNA, and RNA, into
the targeted immune cells, tissues, and model animals for treating diseases.
When the light bulb was invented, no one, including those with the most imaginative
minds, thought of the future applications of electric fields for delivering
genes to prevent or treat diseases. No one thought about this type of application
even after electric shock was used for restarting the suddenly rested heart in the
clinical setting, after genes were discovered, after the gene was successfully delivered
into the mammalian cells via electroporation by the pioneer Pr. Eberhard
Neumann in 1982, or after electroporation was routinely used in many laboratories
for transfecting the genes of interest into cell lines to study the gene function. As
detailed in the first review chapter by Dr. Lluis Mir in Part I of this book, there are
many reasons for the lack of initial interest in using this technique for gene delivery
in a clinical setting, one of the extreme reasons being that electric pulses are associated
with torture and the death penalty. This electroporation technology was eventually
applied for gene delivery in animals and in humans because of the success in
using electroporation for delivering the antineoplastic drug bleomycin to treat
highly malignant tumors. Therefore, a review of electroporation chemotherapy is
presented in Part I to provide the bridging information between electroporation,
electroporation chemotherapy, and electroporation gene therapy, although the latter
is the central theme of this book.