Objective To summarize recent research advancement on gene therapy for hepatic ischemia-reperfusion injury (IRI). Methods Relevant references about basic and clinical researches of hepatic IRI were collected and reviewed. Results Recent experimental researches indicated that the expression of several genes and cytokines could protect hepatic cells by suppressing cell apoptosis, decreasing the production of oxyradical, remaining and improving portal venous flow, promoting bilifaction, self immunoloregulation and decreasing inflammatory reaction, so that it could decrease IRI. Conclusion IRI could be decreased by regulating the expressing of target genes or transducing relative genes in vivo, but the path of gene transfer and the selection and optimization of gene carrier still need more basic and clinical researches to prove.