Making Gene Therapy Safer Using Self-inactivating LTRs
Thursday, April 2, 2009 - 02:14
in Health & Medicine
Several patients in gene therapy clinical trials have developed leukemia as a result of their treatment. The underlying cause of leukemia is thought to be that the viral vectors used to carry the therapeutic gene into cells (gamma-RVs) integrate into the genome of the cells disrupting the natural control of cancer-associated genes (a process known as insertional mutagenesis).