Key Takeaways A single injection of a gene therapy involving what are called zinc fingers dramatically reduced levels of tau, a protein implicated in Alzheimer’s disease, in mice with the condition. The treatment was long lasting, caused no side effects, and reduced Alzheimer’s-related damage in the brain. The technology worked just the way we had
Gene therapy can be used to restore cell function in monogenic disorders or to endow cells with new capabilities, such as improved killing of cancer cells, expression of suicide genes for controlled elimination of cell populations, or protection against chemotherapy or viral infection. While gene therapies were originally most often used to treat monogenic diseases
In drug development, scientific progression was never a solo effort. Rather, to advance new therapies, particularly cell and gene therapies, drug development is a team sport. Why is the team so important? Oftentimes when one tests novel cell and gene therapies in the clinic for the first time, one is treading completely new ground. The
A pair of new gene therapies promise a potentially lasting cure for sickle cell disease by subtly altering the genetic information in patients’ bone marrow cells, researchers report. Both therapies work by switching on a gene that promotes production of fetal hemoglobin, said Dr. Lewis Hsu, chief medical officer of the Sickle Cell Disease Association
NIH-funded therapy will now be tested in humans A newly developed light-sensing protein called the MCO1 opsin restores vision in blind mice when attached to retina bipolar cells using gene therapy. The National Eye Institute, part of the National Institutes of Health, provided a Small Business Innovation Research grant to Nanoscope, LLC for development of
In the past three decades the field of gene therapy has made remarkable progress surging from mere laboratory experiments to FDA-approved products which bring significant reduction in disease burden to patients who previously had no therapeutic options for their serious conditions. In this paper it’s reviewed the evolution of the gene therapy clinical research landscape
New research has found that there are 362 cell and gene therapies in clinical pipelines in the US, an increase from 2018. A new report from America’s Biopharmaceutical Companies has revealed that there are 362 cell and gene therapies in development in the US. Roughly a third of the therapies, 132, are potential treatments for rare diseases. The research
A person with a genetic condition that causes blindness has become the first to receive a CRISPR–Cas9 gene therapy administered directly into their body. The treatment is part of a landmark clinical trial to test the ability of CRISPR–Cas9 gene-editing techniques to remove mutations that cause a rare condition called Leber’s congenital amaurosis 10 (LCA10).
Researchers use lipids to safely deliver gene therapy to the eye, successfully holding off advance of rare, inherited eye disorder Researchers at Case Western Reserve University have used a unique method to safely deliver gene therapy to fight a rare, but irreversible, genetic eye disorder known as Stargardt disease. By using chemically modified lipids—instead of the
Gene therapy to treat Huntington’s disease Huntington’s disease (HD) is a rare disease characterized by abnormal chorea movement and caused by Huntingtin (Htt) gene mutation and neurodegeneration in a brain area called striatum. A research group led by Dr. Gong Chen, a former professor at Penn State University and now leading a brain repair center
