Gene Therapy Could Soon Be Approved In Europe 44
another random user writes
"According to the BBC, 'Europe is on the cusp of approving a gene therapy for the first time, in what would be a landmark moment for the field. ... The European Medicines Agency has recommended a therapy for a rare genetic disease which leaves people unable to properly digest fats. The European Commission will now make the final decision. The idea of gene therapy is simple: if there is a problem with part of a patient's genetic code then replace that part of the code. The reality has not been so easy. In one gene therapy trial a U.S. teenager, Jesse Gelsinger, died, and other patients have developed leukaemia. There no gene therapies available outside of a research lab in Europe or the U.S.' They have considered the use of Glybera to treat lipoprotein lipase deficiency, which leads to fat building up in the blood, abdominal pain and life-threatening pancreatitis (inflammation of the pancreas). 'The therapy uses a virus to infect muscle cells with a working copy of the gene.'"
Re:reaction (Score:5, Interesting)
A few years ago, Gattaca was rated the most realistic sci-fi movie by NASA. Keep that in mind everyone.
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Re:reaction (Score:5, Insightful)
For reasons of fairness and/or perverse nationalism, I'd like to point out that the US was a bastion of eugenic progress and enthusiasm until those Germans ruined it for everyone... A few states were still sterilizing the unfit for a couple of decades after the war!
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They have the will to power. Those groups sound like genetic supermen to me, in the same manner as Khan Noonien Singh. Being able to take care of your own and have as many choices to mate with is actually encouraged by the whole natural selection thing.
Nothing about being genetic "superiority" means you are an altruistic, non-asshole. Indeed, it's more likely to make you an asshole than the alternative.
Re:reaction (Score:5, Informative)
Gene therapy creates the opportunity to prevent Gattaca like scenarios. Within the Gattaca universe it was possible to sequence a person's DNA, but everyone was stuck with what they were born with. If you were luckily born with "good" genes, or if your parents selected for the sperm and eggs with the "best" genes with which to make a test tube baby, then your life was set. If you were born with less than "stellar" genes you were deemed inferior and discriminated against.
What is so exciting about this advance is that if you are born with a defective gene that results in illness, for a certain spectrum of genes, it is now possible to insert a non-defective version into a virus, inject that virus into muscle cells, and you are now as good as new.
This advance is about changing what genes you have at run-time, rather than being stuck with what you are born with. At the moment the changes we make are only additive, but give it time :)
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Give it time and we will have Gattaca-like scenarios.
We have them right now for pills and vaccines.
When H1N1 broke out what was stopping us from getting Vaccines beside the technical issues: Greed via patents
Until that is dealt with, we can have all the gene therapies we want but only if someone gets paid a king's ransom, everytime.
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So you're saying the guy in Gattaca could have had his faulty heart gene repaired and lived his dream legally?
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So you're saying the guy in Gattaca could have had his faulty heart gene repaired and lived his dream legally?
Yes, but his parents chose to have him naturally, without screening or augmentation. (IIRC, it's been a while since i last saw it.)
Rare? (Score:2)
My first reaction was, "I thought that Diabetes was common, maybe not in Europe?"
Then I thought, "I hope it works, it would mean a proven therapy that could easily be applied to other issues like celluar break down of skin tissue." I wish these folks success.
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Where does this house of mirrors end?
When we can rewrite DNA directly without having to rely on viruses to do it for us.
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How do you propose going about modifying trillions of cells manually?
That's up to the programmer, though it will most likely involve a vi vs Emacs flame war.
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You would be insane to use a fully working virus - Instead you package your pay-lode in viral proteins either within a partly functional virus, or as a replacement for a non functional one. For safety reasons the second is always preferable. The first is more risky but you would usually use a virus with no transmission ability outside of the cell line you bread it in, or in the worst case at least no ability to spread between humans. Note that neither of the TFAs differentiate at least as far as I can say
Re:Rare? (Score:5, Informative)
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There's nothing wrong with your English, there.
It's funny how so many people say "sorry for my bad English" when they speak better English than most Americans - or even English people.
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when they speak better English than most Americans - or even English people.
It's funny that you think English people speak "better" English than Americans. I've heard some pretty horrid gobbledygook coming out of the mouths of Englishmen (just as I've heard it coming out of Americans).
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Diabetes has to do with the inability to digest sugar, not fat... (sorry for my English)
To clarify, diabetes results when cells' ability to import glucose from the bloodstream is impaired by insulin deficiency or insulin resistance. Once the sugar gets into the cell it is metabolized normally.
There no (Score:1)
There are no? If you have a southern draw like me though, you just run it together and it sounds the same.
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Still it should have been spelled "There're no"
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No, it should be written as it is spoken,
There ain't no
Quality of life vs. acceptable casualty rate (Score:2)
When you just exist in life without really enjoying it because of disease, illness or other condition out of your control, every avenue of possibility to improve your quality of life looks appealing. It's unfortunate there were casualties but I'm sure there were also advancements made despite that fact.
But ghod forbid we use gene modded plants (Score:2, Insightful)
Messing with the human genome, in a way that could very likely propagate? OK, then.
Hypocrites (assuming Greenpeace isn't protesting this advance).
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So many things...
A) Infecting reproductive cells isn't quite the same as infecting muscle cells.
B) I doubt they are infecting a statistically significant number of cells in the person's body, so in the unlikely event that the virus can also infect reproductive cells it's still statistically unlikely to happen.
C) They are repairing a faulty human gene using the correct version of that human gene, as opposed to taking a gene from one species and inserting it into another
D) Only the people who elect to tak
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genetically enhaced olympic games? (Score:1)
Immun response (Score:1)
Gene therapy with some modified virus will always have this little problem: Immun systems responding in a not so predictable way. There's no way around it. If you introduce a virus the immun system will respond. In every person in a slightly different way.
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The immune system can be tricked. It is also not unstoppable. Indeed, in some cases, it is possible to seriously compromise or nearly eliminate the body's immune defenses on purpose these days. If the gene was a critical one that needed to be replaced, you'd probably put them in a bubble, compromise the immune system, administer the treatment, and then allow the immune system to regain its potency after the virus did its job. It's not risk free, but if it was the difference between possible life or cert
sooo... (Score:2)
How do they keep the virus in the body? (Score:2)
How do they make sure that the virus they use doesn't spread to others?