Gene Therapy shows promise!

[Jeffreyj]

http://evinumen.livejournal.com/464407.html

I thought this was interesting. Does anyone have any thoughts or any input on this?

[Eldon]

Hey Jeff!

It is good to hear from you out there in those mountains. Yes, it does show a promise for our future therapy. Thanks for sharing with us.


Make the BEST of each Day!

[SFscruff]

It's a great feeling having lived long enough to see some of the earlier technical and theoretical 'kinks' worked out in the emerging field of genetic-based therapies.  In 1997 I participated in one of the first Phase II pharmacokinetics clinical trials of a synthetic oligonucleotide (spell checker is no help with this mouth full!) molecule that it was hoped would bind as a sequence in human DNA replication, thus preventing the HIV RNA from inserting itself, coding, and proliferating.  Several subjects, including myself, were hospitalized and infused continually for two weeks with the 'GEM 91 antisense' molecule.  Unfortunately, the molecule was 'sheared' as it was transferring across cellular membranes, and several of the 'daughter/son' subcomponents caused various problems in other organ and metabolic systems and the clinical trials were cancelled.  At that time, the problem was 'sealing off' the synthetic molecule at each of its ends so as to protect it, but still allow it to bind as an entire nucleotide sequence when it reached its target on our (MY!) DNA.  It somewhat boggles the mind that science and medicine have advanced so far as to achieve such intricacies.  Lucky for us that we're living when we do, well...  As research and development continue, I too am carefully watching for the availability of genetic-based therapies which offer perhaps the most likely prospect of fully eradicating the HIV extroverts and introverts crashing my party!  Thanks for the posting.  SFscruff