Special Delivery

Adenoviruses offer powerful gene delivery capabilities.

The rising demands for genetically engineered products such as growth hormones and anticancer therapies keeps gene transfer technologies rapidly evolving. Gene transfer often exploits the power of viruses such as adenovirus to deliver genetic material into cells. The adenovirus system is particularly useful since the virus infects virtually any cell type, including mammalian cells. Quantum Biotechnologies Inc. of Montreal has made the adenovirus gene delivery system even more accessible to the researcher with the launch of the AdEasy system, a complete kit for recombinant adenovirus production. The new system takes advantage of technology developed by researchers at Johns Hopkins University and exploits recombination in bacteria instead of mammalian cells for easy manipulation, efficient recombination, and easy selection of the successful clones.¹

To use the kit, the cDNA of interest is first cloned into a transfer vector before recombination into the adenovirus in Escherichia...