Gene therapy is the ultimate comeback kid. A few weeks ago, it celebrated 25 years since the first trial in humans. Nobody cared. But when it was recently announced that a new type of gene therapy - only ever tested on mice - had been used to treat 17-month-old Layla Richards' leukaemia, everybody cared. Given its huge potential, the passing of the anniversary with so little media coverage emphasises its stormy passage over the last quarter of a century. Replacing Faulty Genes Many human diseases, including cancer, are caused by defects that occur in the genes within our cells. Genes are the blueprints that allow cells to make the proteins that control how they function. A mutation to a gene...
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