Cellular & Molecular Medicine: Open access

Cell Therapy or Cytotherapy is the transfer of cells into a patient with a goal of improving the disease. From beginning blood transfusions were considered to be the first type of cell therapy to be practiced as routine. Later, Bone marrow transplantation has also become a well-established concept which involves treatment of much kind of blood disorders including anemia, leukemia, lymphoma and rare immunodeficiency diseases. Alternative medical practitioners perform cell therapy in the form of several different names including xenotransplant therapy, glandular therapy, and fresh cell therapy. It has been claimed by the proponents of cell therapy that it has been used successfully to repair spinal cord injuries, strengthen weaken immune system, treats autoimmune diseases like AIDS, help patients with neurological disorders like Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease and epilepsy.

Gene Therapy basically involves the introduction or alteration of genetic material within a cell or organism with an intention of curing the disease. Both cell therapy and gene therapy are overlapping fields of biomedical research with the goals of repairing the direct cause of Genetic diseases in DNA or cellular population respectively, the discovery of recombinant DNA technology in the 1970s provided tools to efficiently develop gene therapy. Scientists use these techniques to readily manipulate viral genomes, isolate genes and identify mutations involved in human disease, characterize and regulate gene expressions, and engineer various viral and non-viral vectors. Various long-term treatments for anemia, hemophilia, cystic fibrosis, muscular dystrophy, Gauscher’s disease, liposomal storage diseases, cardiovascular diseases, diabetes and diseases of bones and joints are resolved through successful gene therapy and are elusive today.