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NATIONAL CENTER FOR POLICY ANALYSIS
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| Gene Therapy Comes Roaring Back |
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Gene therapy has always been controversial, mostly because it got off to a promising start and then floundered for almost a decade. But now it is the "comeback kid" of biotech, and is involved in almost 600 clinical trials in 20 countries.
- Gene therapy holds promise for the 5 percent or so of children worldwide who are born with congenital or hereditary problems -- as well as the nearly 40 percent of adults thought to have some genetic predisposition to conditions ranging from minor ailments to killers such as cancer and sickle cell anemia.
- The therapy involves substituting a good gene for one that is defective.
- Scientists have now found that adding genes that cause the right proteins to be produced can potentially alleviate any number of disorders -- from Parkinson's to heart disease to AIDS, although about two-thirds of clinical trials are for cancer.
- Researchers at Jefferson Medical College in Pennsylvania have found that among 26 different cancer cell lines -- including tumors of the lung, head and neck, esophagus, stomach, cervix, pancreas and kidney -- new genes inhibited cancer cell growth in more than half of the experiments.
There has been only one gene-therapy related death and researchers have been able to trace what went wrong -- thereby being able to avoid such an outcome in the future.
Source: Michael Fumento (Hudson Institute), "A New Start for Gene Therapy," Washington Times, October 31, 2002.
For more on Medical Research
http://www.ncpa.org/iss/hea
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Copyright © 2002 National Center for Policy Analysis - All rights reserved.
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