So far, scientists have carried out more than 350 clinical
trials of gene therapy, and not one has been an unqualified success.
This study, which is ongoing, assesses the feasibility and efficacy
of gene therapy in this indication.
The success is a much - needed shot in the arm to the
field of gene therapy, which has recently struggled with safety concerns.
The new method may make some
types of gene therapy easier and could be a boon for researchers hoping to control gene activity in animals, scientists say.
Recently, studies have been done to examine the
use of gene therapy to treat type I diabetes in dogs.
The treatment is delivered just once, a
facet of gene therapy that poses unique pricing questions in an industry fueled by steady payments for chronic therapies.
Plus, its treasure trove of DNA sample data from millions of customers is just the kind of testing data many of the next
generation of gene therapies need.
Provided that the risk - to - benefit
ratio of gene therapy can be improved significantly, a potential cure could have a dramatic impact on the sensibilities of a large slice of humankind.
The researchers conclude this technique could eventually lead to new ways to prepare vast numbers of cells for the coordinated
manufacture of gene therapies.
The authors looked to the
future of gene therapies, and the challenges of delivering these complex treatments to patients.
The
goal of gene therapy is to replace damaged genes with ones that work to address a root cause of cancer: damage to DNA.
And because each cell has its own unique set of mutations, we can not solve them with the
methods of gene therapy in the adult organism either today or tomorrow.
The announcement last month that a fifth child who received gene therapy for an immune system disease has developed leukemia was the latest blow to the
field of gene therapy.
Women were not included in the first
trial of gene therapy, which was mainly concerned with proving the safety of the technique.
That is why in May 2009 the American
Society of Gene Therapy officially changed its name to the American Society of Gene & Cell Therapy.
The clinical trial of nine adult hemophilia B patients, aged 18 to 52 years, used a single
dose of a gene therapy product engineered to enter patients» liver cells and direct the production of the blood clotting factor that they lack.
The RAC model of diverse committee membership and open meetings has ensured a public voice in the review of the safety and
ethics of gene therapy research among academic and industrial investigators.
-- The NEJM published updates from two early - stage Bluebird Bio (NASDAQ: BLUE)
studies of a gene therapy for the rare disease beta - thalassemia, which requires patients to... Next Page»
New insights into specific gene mutations that arise in this often deadly form of brain cancer have pointed to the
potential of gene therapy, but it's very difficult to effectively deliver toxic or missing genes to cancer cells in the brain.
Concerns have been raised about the
safety of gene therapy in the past, not least about links between the viruses used to transfer the genes and disease.
Genetics writer Ricki Lewis uses Haas» story to bookend the checkered
history of gene therapy — the idea of replacing a defective gene with a working one in order to knock out disease.
Ribozymes developed in our research program have been developed to target HIV and these have been inserted into human blood progenitor cells via a retroviral vector as
part of a gene therapy program for the treatment of HIV infection.
The study's variable results to date raise questions about which factor is most important to the
success of gene therapy for any given individual with WAS: the number of WAS gene copies the vector inserts into the patient's cells, the number of modified cells given to a patient, or how effectively the patient's native blood system is eliminated before the modified cells are infused.
As director
of the Gene Therapy Program, she is working to extend gene therapy treatments to new diseases and is actively involved in clinical trials for genetic diseases.
The trial, sponsored by Généthon, will include 17 patients in four centres in Europe, and will assess safety and therapeutic
efficacy of the gene therapy product developed by Généthon.
Intellia Therapeutics has a significant
pipeline of gene therapies that explore knocking out «bad genes» and often replacing them with «good genes.»
Phrases with «of gene therapy»