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Gene Therapy

Gene therapy 'aids youth's sight'

A 18-year-old whose sight was failing has his vision improved in a pioneering operation using gene therapy.
Ref. https://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7369740.stm

Therapy Gene

I think this is a great step. For those who are not wearing glasses you might not understand how much they can effect your life in career choices and potential hazard at the work place. Heat dirt dust can all be reason never to wear contacts and glasses when doubled as a safety glass can be very expensive and heavy on the face.

Gene Therapy Health & Special Psychology

I find this very encouraging. I wonder if it can be done with elderly or middle aged people to improve their eye site without having to undergo lasik. It will be interesting as this becomes more common place what all they can do with this gene replacement.

Therapy Gene

This certainly is an excellent breakthrough, and I am delighted for this young man that he can now see.
I read this in the paper, and the young man is beaming with pride, I couldn't imagine how awful it would be to have to manage daily living without being able to see anything, hopefully this will be available soon for many others.

Therapy Gene

The success of the gene therapy in this particular type of genetic eyesight failure has much wider implications for all of gene therapy research and is the kind of news that needs to be much more widely spread as there is such a large contingency of the population that is against gene therapy and equates this science with "cloning". There are so many people who think that tampering with what "God gave us" at each stage of new medical and scientific development is wrong but without pioneers such as these doctors and researchers there is so much of our lives now that would not exist. The eventual hope of gene therapy is to be able to eradicate such diseases as Cycle Cell Anemia, Arthritis, Gloucoma, Multiple Sclorosis and even Cancer. All these diseases are related to a weakened genetic trigger.

I am, personally, grateful to science and medicine for continuous research as it has saved my own daughter's life. She has a rare autoimmunce disease called Wegener's granulomytosis which, only 17 years ago was UNIVERSALLY fatal but with the dedication of doctors and medical research there is now a way to control this disease and allow the patients to live relatively normal lives. Some extremist religious people say we should not tamper with the human body because what is "wrong" is "God's will". Well it was God's will that humans be intelligent, curious and compassionate and without this, my daughter would be dead now. I am very excited about this development and I am joyous about the patients who have received this treatment.

Gene Therapy

That is a great breakthrough. I think we can look at curing many ailments / disabilities we suffer from now within the next century routinely.

Gene Therapy

Gene Therapy Scores Big Wins Against Blood Cancers
Biotechnology News

In one of the biggest advances against leukemia and other blood cancers in many years, doctors are reporting unprecedented success by using gene therapy to transform patients' blood cells into soldiers that seek and destroy cancer.

Source

Gene Therapy Psychology Special & Health

How breaks in DNA are repaired

The results are significant for gene therapy procedures and for our understanding of cell transformation. A team of researchers has discovered that the processes for repairing DNA damage are far more complex than previously assumed. The ends of breaks in the double helix are not just joined, they are first changed in a meticulously choreographed process so that the original genetic information can be restored. Ref. Source 4a.