First-Class Delivery: Getting Growth Factors to Their Destination

Growth factor bioavailability in therapeutic applications such as wound healing is limited by extracellular matrix sequestration, proteolysis, and clearance. Local, transient delivery by gene transfer is an attractive concept. Many transfection strategies are available, and adenoviral vectors are in clinical trials. Keratinocyte growth factor-1 (KGF-1), an epithelial-specific member of the fibroblast growth factor (FGF) family, has achieved...