Making Progress on Gene Therapy, Despite Targeted Genetics Woes
Summary
Scientists from around the globe will present encouraging research on the use of gene therapy for a broad range of illnesses, including a rare hereditary blindness and cancer.But to the north in Seattle, as Xconomy’s Luke Timmerman reported this month, Targeted Genetics, a corporate leader in the field, is struggling to avoid bankruptcy – a clear sign that gene therapy faces significant scientific and business challenges.Xconomy’s Denise Gellene recently talked with David M. Bodine, society president and chief of the National Human Genome Research Institute’s genetics and molecular biology branch.And now 10 years later there are children in the United States and Europe who would have been dead from immune disorders who are walking around just fine.There are people with inherited blindness who have recovered significant vision, and there are literally hundreds of cancer patients who have been cured.