Short electric pulses show promise for boosting gene therapy uptake

A team of researchers in the electrical engineering department at the University of Wisconsin&ndash;Madison have developed a stimulating method that could make the human body more receptive to certain gene therapies, potentially improving the delivery of these costly but transformative medical treatments.
One of the bottlenecks in advancing gene therapy is getting the correct dose of genetic material into the target cells. The UW&ndash;Madison research suggests that applying a moderate electric field, which left no lasting damage to the cells that received it, could help in creating more effective therapies.