Are there genes for which gene therapy cannot deliver?

6 days ago ... Certain viruses are often used as vectors because they can deliver the new gene by infecting the cell. The viruses are modified so they can't cause disease when used in people. read more

Perhaps a future genius will figure out the way to do this safely, but with current strategies and technologies, genes that are expressed throughout the body are the hardest to fix, and may never find a possible gene therapy option. read more

Gene therapy is designed to introduce genetic material into cells to compensate for abnormal genes or to make a beneficial protein. If a mutated gene causes a necessary protein to be faulty or missing, gene therapy may be able to introduce a normal copy of the gene to restore the function of the protein. read more

In the medicine field, gene therapy (also called human gene transfer) is the therapeutic delivery of nucleic acid into a patient's cells as a drug to treat disease. The first attempt at modifying human DNA was performed in 1980 by Martin Cline, but the first successful nuclear gene transfer in humans, approved by the National Institutes of Health, was performed in May 1989. read more