Gene Therapy
- Submitted by: tiratul
- Views: 219
- Category: Science
- Date Submitted: 12/24/2014 05:11 AM
- Pages: 3
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1. Is gene therapy really a realistic approach to curing diseases? Discuss a few recent trials on gene therapy to support your opinion.
Yes, gene therapy is an alternative medicine to cure diseases especially inherited diseases like muscular dystrophy, cystic fibrosis, cancer as well as heart disease. Gene therapy can give a promising result for a rare inherited disease. One of the examples is the disease that causes progressive blindness or choroideremia. This disease affected 1 in 50 000 people around the world in which currently doesn’t have any cure. However, after underwent therapy, patients show improvement in their vision as the particular gene (CHM gene- Rab escort protein 1) was successfully delivered to their retina and thus produce protein that they were lacking of. This gene is responsible to stop the cells of the retina from dying off. This therapy gives a big impact to patient suffered from age-related macular degeneration or retinitis pigmentosa as it can be applied safely before the beginning of vision loss. Thus, there is still hope for them to be safely cured.
Gene therapy can give positive result in curing or giving patient suffering from hardly cured disease. Another clinical trial has also been done to patient suffering from Parkinson Disease and surprisingly it gives promising result too. They underwent minor surgery to inject the virus that carry three genes that code for enzymes that produce dopamine into their brain. The treatment gives no adverse effect. Their movement and quality of life have been improved. This indicated that the dopamine has successfully produced at an area where it was not before. Although this therapy does not cure this disease 100 % but it reduce the complication and makes patients life better that before they were being treated.
3. Is it better to have a dengue vaccine or to improve public awareness of cleanliness (to prevent mosquitoes breeding)?
From my point of view, improving public awareness of cleanliness...
Yes, gene therapy is an alternative medicine to cure diseases especially inherited diseases like muscular dystrophy, cystic fibrosis, cancer as well as heart disease. Gene therapy can give a promising result for a rare inherited disease. One of the examples is the disease that causes progressive blindness or choroideremia. This disease affected 1 in 50 000 people around the world in which currently doesn’t have any cure. However, after underwent therapy, patients show improvement in their vision as the particular gene (CHM gene- Rab escort protein 1) was successfully delivered to their retina and thus produce protein that they were lacking of. This gene is responsible to stop the cells of the retina from dying off. This therapy gives a big impact to patient suffered from age-related macular degeneration or retinitis pigmentosa as it can be applied safely before the beginning of vision loss. Thus, there is still hope for them to be safely cured.
Gene therapy can give positive result in curing or giving patient suffering from hardly cured disease. Another clinical trial has also been done to patient suffering from Parkinson Disease and surprisingly it gives promising result too. They underwent minor surgery to inject the virus that carry three genes that code for enzymes that produce dopamine into their brain. The treatment gives no adverse effect. Their movement and quality of life have been improved. This indicated that the dopamine has successfully produced at an area where it was not before. Although this therapy does not cure this disease 100 % but it reduce the complication and makes patients life better that before they were being treated.
3. Is it better to have a dengue vaccine or to improve public awareness of cleanliness (to prevent mosquitoes breeding)?
From my point of view, improving public awareness of cleanliness...