Gene Therapy and genetic diseases

Gene Therapy and genetic diseases

Gene therapy has already been taken to keep the next generation healthy in most developed countries such as Canada, United States, United kingdom and Australia, etc. Gene therapy can act as the medical treatment to cure and prevent the diseases rather than the drug. Gene therapy can be defined as “the use of genetic material (usually deoxyribonucleic acid - DNA) to manipulate a patient's cells for the treatment of an inherited or acquired disease” (American Society of Gene Therapy, 2003a,Internet). Therefore the story of gene therapy was started from the discovery of deoxyribonucleic (DNA) in 1817 from the sperm of trout from the Rhine River. And the first successfully experiment recombinant deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) that is the earlier form of gene therapy was taken in 1972 in the laboratory of Paul Berg at Stanford University. (Burck & Larrick, 1991). However the concept of gene therapy was presented in the late 1970s. (American Society of Gene Therapy, 2003a,Internet).

Gene therapy seems to be an excellent method to prevent and cure the diseases and keep our next generation healthy however there is some challenge that the unexpected side-effect gene therapy in the future Also, there are many limitations on this therapy such as economic issue, ethical problem, time and the technology assessment. For example: when treat cancer, acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) with gene therapy, the scientists should deliver the gene to the target cell correctly but it is uncontrolled yet. As a result, gene therapy is still an unexpected medical treatment in the developed countries even the successful gene therapies cases have already occur. Furthermore genetic diseases are a serious problem to the infant even in the developed countries such as United States and Canada; about 4% of the infants are affected by a birth ...