Laser light has been used to remotely control gene therapy in rats. This mechanism will help make gene therapy more effective by allowing the precise time and location at which new genes are activated to be controlled, meaning specific tissues can be targeted while healthy tissues are left alone.
Lasers have been used in the past to perforate cells for gene therapy in cultured cells. But the new research – activating marker genes in the eyes of rats – is more sophisticated and the first time lasers have been used for gene therapy in live animals.
Kazunori Kataoka, at the University of Tokyo, Japan, and colleagues developed a photosensitive molecular complex that could be activated in rats’ eyes by irradiating them with visible light from a low power laser.
The synthetic complex is designed to deliver foreign DNA by carrying