Textbook of Gene Therapy
- K.K. Jain
Just over 15 years ago, the first viral vectors, based mainly on retroviruses, appeared on the scene. Few fields of biology have captured the imagination of the public, clinicians, biotechnology and big pharmaceutical companies as much as the promise of gene therapy. Mercifully for those of us practicing the science of gene therapy—or more accurately, gene delivery—'functional genomics' has become the new 'darling' and has removed some of the unwanted attention that was forced on us.
Therefore I was excited, though a bit surprised, to discover this Textbook of Gene Therapy. Unfortunately, this is not a textbook in the classical sense of a scholarly textbook of biochemistry or organic chemistry. Professor K.K. Jain has put together a series of monographs written for industrial readers and embellished them with superficial information on almost every disease or delivery system mentioned in connection with gene therapy. The book has nearly 400 pages and 29 chapters ranging from 2 pages on gene therapy of liver disorders to 50 pages for gene therapy of neurological disorders! I am puzzled as to the intended audience of this book. It is too thin in content for undergraduate, graduate students, or postdoctoral fellows, and too broad and uncritical for practicing physicians. Nor does it have enough information to guide a venture capitalist investing in gene therapy companies. Textbook of Gene Therapy is 'a mile wide and a millimeter deep' and should have been entitled Soundbites on Gene Therapy or, better yet, Smorgasbord of Gene Therapy .
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Verma, I. Textbook of Gene Therapy. Nat Med 5, 371 (1999). https://doi.org/10.1038/7357
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/7357
