Lifespan is still limited by the impossibility of finding new organs to replace those damaged by age, accidents or disease and by the lack of cure for cancer and infectious and cardiovascular diseases . However, scientific advances during the 1990 s began to plant the idea that, even if eternal youth is not yet within our grasp, extending the lifespan up to 150 years will be a possibility within the next quarter-century. This is the first of a series of articles dealing with those advances. In more than 300 clinical trials enrolling about 6000 patients, not one has been cured. And, to complicate things, it sadly ended the century under investigation by the FDA .
Gene therapy is the administration of genes to a patient for therapeutic purposes.
It intends to restore a function that has been lost because of a defective gene by giving the patient a functional one. The isolation of the gene in question, the insertion of the gene in the right place in the genome and an appropriate vehicle to deliver the gene. The first problem has been solved in all of the trials that have been carried out up to now. That is, the genes to be administered have been isolated and characterized. And with the Human Genome Project coming to an end in the very near future, there is no doubt that many more genes related to or associated with diseases will be isolated.