The idea for his vector came during a conversation with Gordon about the need for a gene therapy vector that would accumulate in tumors after being injected intravenously. Anderson had been calling for such a vector for years. Recalling work he'd done on von Willebrand's factor, Hall tossed out a top-of-the-head remark intended as a joke. "I could design a vector so it would stick to collagen," he remembers laughingly saying, "but who wants to transduce straw?" His jest unexpectedly earned not laughter but silence. In a pause of reflection, it dawned on both of them that targeting collagen might be uncommonly useful.
In healthy tissue collagen is buried under cells, proteins and layers and is exposed only in instances of tissue disruption. "Every lesion of every major disease has disruption of collagen," Hall notes, adding that for cancer the connection to collagen is threefold. Cancer brings about new blood ...
