Kabanov AV, Felgner PL, Seymour LW, eds. (£70.00.) Wiley, 1998. ISBN 0471 97269

This publication brings together a collective wealth of knowledge from a number of experts in the field of non-viral gene therapeutics, and addresses the hurdles and most recent progresses in the field. The book is divided into a user friendly series of subsections, beginning with an extensive outline of the principles of self assembly of DNA with cationic agents, such as lipids or polyamino acids, right through to some of the ongoing clinical evaluations of the formulations currently in trials.

Although the reader might become bogged down in the convoluted theories of complexation, and the mathematics governing self assembly outlined in the first part of the book, …