Genetics And Gene Therapy

Many diseases are caused by a simple point mutation.

As human gene therapy becomes a clinical reality, a new era in medicine dawns. Novel and innovative developments in molecular genetics now provide opportunities to treat the genetic bases of diseases often untreatable before. Somatic Gene Therapy documents these historical clinical trials, reviews current advances in the field, evaluates the use of the many different cell types and organs amenable to gene transfer, and examines the prospects of various exciting strategies for gene therapy.

In 1982, a meeting of unusual influence was held at the Banbury Conference Center of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. After an early attempt at treating clinical disease with transferred genes had ignited public attention and scientific controversy, a group of distinguished biologists and physicians came together to assess practical progress towards gene therapy and what its future might be. The geneticist Ted Friedmann wrote a narrative account of the participants' contributions to the meeting, ending with a personal discussion of ethical issues raised by genetic technologies.His book, the first on gene therapy, was widely read but has long been unavailable. It has been reprinted with a new introduction entitled "Gene Therapy 1994", in which the author reviews the field's technical accomplishments and ethical dilemmas. Now that gene therapy has become part of the medical landscape, this volume is of interest as both a historical document and an assessment of the field's current challenges.

They start with the current techniques of gene addition, using non-reproductive (somatic) cells in an effort to cure or treat disease. Next they address the technical problems and moral issues facing attempts to prevent disease through genetically modifying early human embryos or sperm and egg cells. These changes would be passed on to future generations. Chapter 4, in many ways the most original part of this volume, confronts the issue of employing genetic means to improve human abilities and appearance.

Genetics and Gene Therapy shows the wide range of the debate and the very real significance that genetics and its associated developments have for human beings, individually and collectively. Few areas of science and medicine have resulted in the volume of academic and popular literature as has genetics. The so-called revolution in understanding of the causes of disease states, and even behavioural traits, has focussed public attention on the influence of genes in making us what we are. Rapidly, however, the potential benefits of such understanding were overtaken, in the public mind at least, by the question of the possible (negative) implications of genetic knowledge and associated technologies. The chapters in this volume show just how wide-ranging concern has become, ranging from regulation to cloning, with the fear of discrimination in between. Part One begins with a range of general discussions of about the genetic enterprise itself, followed by consideration of some specific questions. Part Two then addresses cutting edge debates in genetics.

Nichols explores the potential for gene therapy and identifies those who are candidates for it. Having provided a biomedical background for understanding somatic cell gene therapy, she takes a thoughtful look at complex and sensitive issues surrounding ethical, economic, and policy aspects of manipulating human genes.

This book covers the foundations of genes and heredity to give readers a solid understanding of what modern genetics has been built on, before examining the ways in which genetic testing is used to assess genetic risk.

Amazing medical breakthroughs are made every day. In the past decades, medical researchers have cured diseases that were once deadly and devised new methods to heal that were once unimaginable. This title follows the development of gene therapy, including the discovery of DNA, groundbreaking discoveries and the doctors who made them, and where the science is heading in the future. Learn how gene therapy works and why future applications of the technology will be controversial. Sidebars, full-color photos, a glossary, and well-placed graphs, charts, and maps, enhance this engaging title. Aligned to Common Core Standards and correlated to state standards. Essential Library is an imprint of ABDO Publishing Company.