Application of gene therapy with viral vectors in infectious and noninfectious diseases

Virus-based vectors, also called viral vectors are being studied in the field of gene therapy because of their innate biological and structural properties. Their ability to protect and specific delivery of genetic elements into the cells, promising results in the pre-clinical studies, going through clinical trials and approval of some products as a therapeutic option in some cancers introduce viral vectors as a powerful tool in the field of gene therapy. In this review, first an introduction about viral vectors is presented and then some studies about application of viral vectors in various fields of human diseases such as prevention and treatment are briefly discussed.