Biology News Net - Gene Therapy

1 shot of gene therapy and children with congenital blindness can now see

Sun, 25 Oct 2009 02:28:24 -0500

Born with a retinal disease that made him legally blind, and would eventually leave him totally sightless, the nine-year-old boy used to sit in the back of the classroom, relying on the large print on an electronic screen and assisted by teacher aides. Now, after a single injection of genes that produce light-sensitive pigments in the back of his eye, he sits in front with classmates and participates in class without extra help. In the playground, he joins his classmates in playing his first game of softball.

Smart rat 'Hobbie-J' produced by over-expressing a gene that helps brain cells communicate

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 17:34:12 -0500

Over-expressing a gene that lets brain cells communicate just a fraction of a second longer makes a smarter rat, report researchers from the Medical College of Georgia and East China Normal University.

And the beat goes on: Scientists jump-start the heart by gene transfer

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 22:12:47 -0500

Scientists from the Universities of Michigan and Minnesota show in a research report published online in the FASEB Journal (http://www.fasebj.org) that gene therapy may be used to improve an ailing heart's ability to contract properly. In addition to showing gene therapy's potential for reversing the course of heart failure, it also offers a tantalizing glimpse of a day when "closed heart surgery" via gene therapy is as commonly prescribed as today's cocktail of drugs.

Developing gene therapy to fight blindness

Wed, 29 Jul 2009 18:08:16 -0500

An international team of scientists and clinicians from the United States and Saudi Arabia are working to develop gene therapy for treating a rare, hereditary retinal disease. The therapy has been shown to restore lost vision in animal models of retinitis pigmentosa (RP). Their work is being funded in part by a $1.5 million grant from the Prince Salman Center for Disability Research in Saudi Arabia, where the recessive gene mutation that leads to the eye disease RP has been found in children from several families.

Gene therapy technique thwarts cancer by cutting off tumor blood supply

Thu, 11 Jun 2009 19:29:00 -0500

University of Florida researchers have come up with a new gene therapy method to disrupt cancer growth by using a synthetic protein to induce blood clotting that cuts off a tumor's blood and nutrient supply.

Gene therapy shows early promise for treating obesity

Mon, 09 Mar 2009 21:54:51 -0500

With obesity reaching epidemic levels, researchers at the Ohio State University Medical Center are studying a potentially long-term treatment that involves injecting a gene directly into one of the critical feeding and weight control centers of the brain.

Gene therapy shows promise as weapon against HIV

Mon, 23 Feb 2009 14:05:31 -0500

A new UCLA AIDS Institute study has found that gene therapy can be developed as a safe and active technique to combat HIV.

Gene therapy reversed heart damage in heart failure

Mon, 29 Dec 2008 16:32:13 -0500

Long-term gene therapy resulted in improved cardiac function and reversed deterioration of the heart in rats with heart failure, according to a recent study conducted by researchers at Thomas Jefferson University's Center for Translational Medicine. The study was published online in Circulation.

Gene therapy effective treatment against gum disease

Thu, 11 Dec 2008 21:55:24 -0500

Scientists at the University of Michigan have shown that gene therapy can be used to successfully stop the development of periodontal disease, the leading cause of tooth loss in adults.

UC Davis researchers exploring gene therapy to fight AIDS

Sat, 06 Dec 2008 14:27:09 -0500

The apparent success of a case in which German doctors cured a man of AIDS using a bone marrow transplant comes as no surprise to Gerhard Bauer, a UC Davis stem cell researcher. Bauer has been working for more than 10 years on a similar cure for AIDS based on replacing the devastated immune system of an HIV-infected patient with stem cells that have been engineered to resist human immunodeficiency syndrome.