Somatic gene engineering, thougts and ideas?

Just to clarify what somatic gene engineering is I'm posting this short part from wikipedia to avoid confusion.

Somatic genetic engineering involves adding genes to cells other than egg or sperm cells. For example, if a person had a disease caused by a defective gene, a healthy gene could be added to the affected cells to treat the disorder. As of now, this is likely to take the form of gene therapy. The distinguishing characteristic of somatic engineering is that it is non-inheritable, i.e. the new gene would not be passed to the recipient’s offspring.

So what this post is about?
Well, I'm interested in genetic engineering, because I think that many current uncurable genetic diseases can be cured in future using somatic gene engineering. Not only that, but I think that in future we will be able to redesign almost completely individuals genome, problem is that how do we inject genetic code without causing any deadly side-effects. I'm also interested has anyone heard about succsessful somatic gene engineering cases and if so where?
Why I'm so curious about is, because one who will be successful might become Future's Microsoft or Bayer. It's always good to look ahead.

I have few ideas, but I don't know how would they work.

[edit on 14-5-2010 by SpeDeZo]

reply to post by SpeDeZo


Even though this subject is a little above my head, I find it fascinating and was unaware of this technology. Thanks for the post and I will read up on the matter!
The tissue matrix potential is pretty exciting!
What company is leading the way in this field? Yes, could be a good investment.

The only success stories I found were on mice...

A Demonstration Using Mice Successful
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov...

Somatic Gene Therapy Prevents Auto Immune Disease
www.jimmunol.org...

[edit on 14-5-2010 by speculativeoptimist]