A number of recent headlines imply a recent case study just publishedproves that gene therapy has cured sickle cell diseasea genetic disorder that incurs tremendous pain, suffering and diminished life expectancy.

Due to such limited progress in management of this condition, this team of researcherstook samples from the bone marrow of a patient with severe diseaseUsing a lentiviral vector, they transferred an anti-sickling gene into the patients stem cellswhich get put back into the patient in the hope they will multiply and replace the cells made with the defective gene.

[T]he team concludes their patient had complete clinical remission with correction of hemolysis and biologic hallmarks of the disease. Furthermore, after fifteen months, the antisickling protein remained high at approximately 50% and the patient had no crises or hospitalizations. Before, the patient required regular transfusions.

ACSHs Senior Fellow in Molecular Biology, Dr. Julianna LeMieux, puts the promise of gene therapy into even greater context for this and other disease entities:This is an incredibly promising result, even with the obvious caveat that it is only one person. Sickle Cell is a disease that is ripe for genetic advances[T]his one success story is incredibly encouraging for the sickle cell community and for moving the field of curing diseases using genetic editing forward.

[The study can be found here.]

The GLP aggregated and excerpted this blog/article to reflect the diversity of news, opinion, and analysis. Read full, original post:Did Gene Therapy Cure Sickle Cell Disease?

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Sickle cell cure? Patient in complete remission following gene therapy - Genetic Literacy Project