Gene Therapies For Eternal Youth
By Stav Dimitropoulos,
proto.life
| 08. 03. 2023
Imagine a not-so-distant future, when a 60-year-old man named John Doe goes to the doctor to replace a faulty gene or insert a whole new gene into his body—something that cures his diabetes, for instance. This is no pipe dream.
So far, gene therapy has been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for only a couple of applications like rare inherited diseases and blood cancer. That said, more than 2,000 clinical trials are taking place in 2023, with 200 of them having already reached phase 3 clinical trials. A slew of upcoming gene therapies could be approved—possibly in the months to come—in the United States and Europe, targeting everything from sickle cell disease and hemophilia to metastatic skin cancer. In this future, gene therapy will be approved for everything we can imagine—and many things we can’t.
Now fast forward 10 more years. That same man and his peers will have counted 70 circles round the sun. But John will remain biologically 60. At the same time, someone who is 30 years old in the year 2033 could... see more
Related Articles
By Heidi Ledford, Nature | 09.18.2023
A high-precision successor to CRISPR genome editing has reached a milestone: the technique, called base editing, has made its US debut in a clinical trial. The trial tests more complex genome edits than those performed in humans so far...
By Roni Cayrn Rabin, The New York Times | 09.22.2023
Photo by Piron Guillaume on Unsplash
Surgeons in Baltimore have transplanted the heart of a genetically altered pig into a man with terminal heart disease who had no other hope for treatment, the University of Maryland Medical Center announced on...
By Aki Ito, Insider | 09.18.2023
Sure, there have been a few nutjobs out there who think AI will wipe out the human race. But ever since ChatGPT's explosive emergence last winter, the bigger concern for most of us has been whether these tools will soon...
By Natasha May, The Guardian | 09.22.2023
One in every 18 babies in Australia are now born through IVF, with a record high number of births recorded in the latest data.
The annual report from medical researchers at the University of New South Wales found a...