Gene therapy

Gene therapy means putting in a working gene to a person who has a damaged gene. The European Commission has approved this method for one particular treatment.Gallagher, James 2012. Gene therapy: Glybera approved by European Commission. BBC Science & Environment.  The treatment by the product Glybera uses a virus to infect muscle cells with a working copy of the gene. The European Commission has given Glybera marketing authorisation, which means it can be sold throughout the EU.

One in a million people have damaged copies of the lipase gene needed to break down fats. Fat builds up in their blood; this leads to pain and  inflammation of the pancreas (pancreatitis). It is life-threatening. Up to now, the only way to manage the condition is to have a very low-fat diet.

When used in this way, a virus is a vector. That means it is a carrier; the gene has been inserted into the viral genome, and the virus sticks it into the human cells. The technique is called transfection. This technique is different from the gene knockout technique, which does not use a viral vector.

 China 
China was the first country to approve the commercial production of a gene therapy, in 2003. That gene therapy is for head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC)—a cancer that occurs in 10% of new cancers in China. There are  2.5 million new cancer patients every year in China.Pearson, Sue; Hepeng Jia1 & Keiko Kandachi1 2004. China approves first gene therapy. Nature Biotechnology 22, 34 

Sold under the brand name Gendicine, the world's first commercial gene therapy also uses a virus to insert the gene into the human genome.

 Past 
The possibility of gene therapy was talked about as soon as the roles of DNA and RNA were known about. The first specific publication was in 1972.Friedmann T. & Roblin R. 1972. Gene therapy for human genetic disease? Science 175 (4025): 949 

 Future 
Many more types of gene therapy are in the trial stage. It is clear that a cycle of events will be part of future clinical medicine: DNA sequence analysis > identify defective genes > fix genes with gene therapy or gene knockout. There are sometimes problems of side-effects; these may be discovered at the trial stage. There is now a database which lists all known clinical trials.Gene therapy clinical trials worldwide. Journal of Gene Medicine 

 References 

Category:Genetic engineering