Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • OUTLOOK

Designer viruses could be the secret to cheaper and better gene therapy

Researcher and entrepreneur Luk Vandenberghe thinks he can transport genes into cells much more efficiently by improving the viral vectors that carry them.
  1. Neil Savage

    1. Neil Savage is a science and technology journalist in Lowell, Massachusetts.

    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed  Google Scholar

Luk Vandenberghe at Massachusetts Eye and Ear in Boston holds a model of an adeno-associated virus. Credit: Aram Boghosian/Massachusetts Eye and Ear

Luk Vandenberghe walks over to a shelf in his office and picks up two fist-sized objects. One is a more complicated version of a Rubik’s Cube, with 20 individually coloured sides instead of the standard 6. The other is an off-white glob of hard plastic produced by a 3D printer. It’s studded with bumps, dimples and repeating triads of vaguely pyramid-like shapes, 20 in all.

Access options

Rent or buy this article

Prices vary by article type

from$1.95

to$39.95

Learn more

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Nature 564, S18-S19 (2018)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-018-07647-9

This article is part of Nature Outlook: Gene therapy, an editorially independent supplement produced with the financial support of third parties. About this content.

References

  1. Gao, G. et al. J. Virol. 78, 6381–6388 (2004).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  2. Zinn, E. et al. Cell Rep. 12, 1056–1068 (2015).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  3. Pan, B. et al. Nature Biotech. 35, 264–272 (2017).

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Subjects

Latest on:

Nature Careers

Jobs

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing

Search

Advanced search

Quick links