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Needle-free liquid jet injectors have been used for over five decades for delivery of numerous vaccines and drugs such as insulin, growth hormones and anaesthetics. Mitragotri reviews jet injectors with respect to their clinical and emerging applications, mechanistic understanding and future prospects.
Although the prospects of gene therapy have not been fully realised, there is hope that nanotechnologies will have great impact on this field. Crommelin and colleagues describe such approaches to gene therapy. Nucleic acid delivery systems are being developed that incorporate virus-like functions in a single nanoparticle.
