Tuesday 5 May 2015

Development in Gene Therapy

This is another step of medical profession. You may have already known that gene therapy is popular in recently decades because it can fix your health problem at its source and in the future, doctor may give you a gene injection instead of surgery or drugs.

According to “Gene therapy's 'temporary benefits' for retina disease” (2015), study results of gene therapy on Lebel’s congenitial amaurosis (LCA) is published in the New England Journal of Medicine.  The results is improvement of patient’s night vision by using gene therapy injection-but only temporarily, however, scientists develop new vector that can deliver gene to its target more powerful and it will be test in the next phase of clinical trial.

Nowadays, gene therapy still cannot be used for treatment genetic disorder, even if there are many study results of success of gene therapy. I think we may need more clinical trial and safety information.

Gene therapy mostly use for treatment of disease which is cause of gene defects such as LCA, color blindness, G-6-PD and so on. You may not know all of that, but everyone has to know this one, the most common genetic disorder, that is Down’s syndrome. Therefore, I would like to share a story of my cousin who has this disorder. He is in the same age as me but he cannot take care himself. For example, he cannot take a shower alone and put his clothes on by himself. You may think that is not too bad for person who suffers from this disease because it is just slow development problem. But, there was something that we had never expected happen. He tries to kill his mother by squeezing her neck one. Because his mother does not let him to watch TV, but luckily, his father had arrived home at that time, so his mother did not hurt much. I do not want to think if his father came back home late, what would happen?

This is just only one example from people and their family that suffer from Down’s syndrome. However, there are many genetic disorders that cannot cure and would make some trouble to others. If gene therapy can be used successfully in human someday, it would bring a lot of benefits to human.
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Reference
"Gene therapy's 'temporary benefits' for retina disease". (2015, May 4). BBC News Health. Retrieved from http://www.bbc.com/news/health-32550128

8 comments:

  1. I think trend of gene therapy is coming and blooming in the US for a long time because most professor in the US pay attention to do research about gene in humans; for example, in my field, pharmaceutical field, when I find some information that is interesting, most topics are related to gene such as gene delivery. One of the causes is that most drugs especially in cancer drugs have a lot of side effect to humans cell so most scientist or researchers have tried to find new ways to specific to cancer cell; in addition, new vaccines are also related to gene because humans gene may be less dangerous than some part of animal to make the vaccines.

    For my experience, when I was 4th year in my university, my teacher taught me about pharmacogenomics which cure patients by depending on individual gene because most research papers provide that it's more effective for gene therapy because individuals have a different kind of gene sequence in your body. The different gene sequence leads to a different result of treatment; consequently, gene therapy may be a good way to apply for patients.

    Last but not least, I think that gene therapy is more interest because some drugs especially in antibiotic can resist some bacterial; it's called drug resistance. So, it's a new method to solve the problem and develop our medical treatment. However, I agree with you that gene therapy is still not available and requires a lot of knowledge like safety data to support both efficacy and safety.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I could not agree with you more that cancer is another disease which is major target of gene therapy because modern medication still have many side effect for patients. If you are interest in this therapy, might you change your mind study in gene therapy instead of pharmaceutical engineering?

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  2. I have my cousin that has Down's syndrome too, her family was very sad and tried to get the ways to cure her. Even though, she is better now , but she still can't have meal ,and taking a bath with herself.
    I'm interested with this technology. I hope it can cure the human soon.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I have known that feeling. I think the best thing their family can do is just the best nurture.

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  3. I know someone that has Down's syndrome but his symptom is not much serious as your cousin. Your cousin story make me realize that Down’s syndrome is very dangerous genetic disorder. It make patient can't control himself. It is very fortunate, if someone can cure it and help the patients from this nightmare.

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    Replies
    1. Before such situation happen, I have never known that there are some case in which parent are kill by their children because of this syndrome. It's very sad story.

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  4. I do agree with you that " If gene therapy can be used successfully in human someday, it would bring a lot of benefits to human."

    I heard some news before that in US were testing gene therapy for healing cancer , some diseases and also in beauty surgery.
    And I also heard that in beauty surgery used gene therapy to make people look younger than their real ages. But the cost of this therapy is quite too expensive. I think that only rich people or celebrities can afford this therapy!

    ReplyDelete
  5. I do agree with you that " If gene therapy can be used successfully in human someday, it would bring a lot of benefits to human."

    I heard some news before that in US were testing gene therapy for healing cancer , some diseases and also in beauty surgery.
    And I also heard that in beauty surgery used gene therapy to make people look younger than their real ages. But the cost of this therapy is quite too expensive. I think that only rich people or celebrities can afford this therapy!

    ReplyDelete

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