As shown in Fig. 9, it was found that administration of EGFR antagonist (3 mg/kg) significantly attenuated the hypertrophic effects of intra-cardiac Ad-KLK8 gene delivery, as evidenced by the decreases in the transcripts of cardiac hypertrophy markers (Fig. 9A–C) and cross-sectional area of cardiomyocytes (Fig. 9D,E) as compared with those obtained from rats injected with Ad-KLK8 alone. The gene discussed is KLK8; the disease is cardiac hypertrophy.