Gene editing medicine is accelerating: More than 200 people worldwide have been treated with experimental CRISPR therapies

(MIT Technology Review) Gene editing medicine is accelerating: More than 200 people worldwide have been treated with experimental CRISPR therapies
Credit: Unsplash/ Julien Tromeur
[Sickle cell patient Victoria Gray] is one of more than 200 people who have been treated with CRISPR-based therapies in clinical trials, said David Liu of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, who has led the development of new and improved forms of CRISPR. Trials are also underway for a range of other diseases, including cancers, genetic vision loss, and amyloidosis.

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Liu highlighted the case of Alyssa, a teenager in the UK who was diagnosed with a form of leukemia that affects a type of white blood cells called T cells. Chemotherapy didn’t work, and neither did a bone marrow transplant. So doctors at Great Ormond Street Hospital in London tried a CRISPR-based approach.

It involved taking healthy T cells from a donor and using CRISPR to modify them. The treated cells were altered so that they wouldn’t be rejected by Alyssa’s immune system, but they would be able to track down and attack Alyssa’s own cancerous T cells. These cells were then given to Alyssa as a treatment. It seems to have worked.

“As of now, approximately 10 months after treatment, her cancer remains undetectable,” Liu said.

It really is incredible that we are hearing such success stories already.

This is an excerpt. Read the full article here

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