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| JON WILSON/SPL/PHOTO RESEARCHERS |
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GENE THERAPY
When French doctors reported that they had successfully treated four boys for the devastating immune-system disorder called bubble-boy disease, the news was hailed as the first clear victory for gene therapy. The researchers overcame their patients' genetic deficit by inserting a working version of a gene that enabled the boys to produce healthy infection-fighting cells. But only five months later, similar trials were halted in France and the U.S. when the experimental treatment was blamed for causing a leukemia-like illness in one child. It may be that retroviruses, used to ferry new genes into a patient's DNA, are triggering cancer by interfering with other genes. For now, the promise of gene therapy remains on hold.
Related Sources:
New England Journal of Medicine (Apr. 18, 2002)
Food and Drug Administration announcement (Oct. 3, 2002)
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