Gene (nucleic acid) delivery to the cytosol or nucleus of a cell is, without the aid of a suitable delivery system, an inefficient process. Here the interaction of a defined nucleic acid with a recombinant protein that can: 1) facilitate the process of cell penetration and 2)successfully interact (bind to) a nucleic acid, is being examined in order to evaluate the usefulness of this system for gene delivery. The protein under investigation has the capacity to not only penetrate the cytosol but, in theory, interact with nucleic acids in a sequence specific manner. It is the interaction between the protein and the nucleic acid that will be investigated here.This is particularly interesting as the sequence specificity of this interaction sets this drug delivery system aside from all others based upon polycation and polyanion interactions which lack any defining specificity.