Gene therapy for cancer--in the dock, blown off course or full speed ahead?

Gene therapy no longer seems to generate the unlimited optimism that it once inspired. So much so that the field has recently attracted the close scrutinies of the Director of the NIH himself. In this introductory chapter, the background is presented to the rise, and apparent decline, of the gene therapy of cancer and serves as a prelude to this issue of Cancer Metastasis Reviews which is designed to ask whether the field is worthy of its highly-priced and highly-hyped market profile.