MORE ON GENE THERAPY

With Linda at the bottom of the Trollsteigen, Norway

I’m not sure there is anything entirely new in this article, but at the least it is an excellent summary of modern genome-based medical research.  Also, it comes from an article* published in Nature which alone makes it a big deal.  In a way, it reads like something of a (premature) victory lap, but with considerable justification.  Anyway, here it is

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To read this article easily you will have to remind yourself of a few things:

(1)What a T cell is and does, and why it doesn’t help with cancer.

(2) What is meant by CRISPR, and how it is used to “edit” the genome.

(3) That CART refers to a T cell that has been engineered to recognize, and attack, particular cancer cells

(4) How viruses make their living (if you can call it that)

So, all of these items have been discussed in this blog.  A virus reproduces by penetrating the cell wall of some innocent bystanding cell and inserting its DNA.  The cell subsequently  cranks out multitudes of baby viruses, and then croaks.  Because they can do this, viruses have been used to deliver stretches of DNA to, say, cancer cells.  Actually, their main value has been to modify T cells into little cancer-killing machines.  A cell so altered is called CART, for chimaeric antigen receptor, T cell.  This works well, but is slow and expensive.  This article reports the successful re-programming of T cells not using virus vectors .  The trick is to mix just the right proportions of DNA, CRISPR, and T cells together, and then hit the mixture with just the right electrical current.  The work was performed at the U. Cal Medical School, in San Francisco.  I may be wrong, but I think the same folks developed CRISPR in the first place.  Anyway, this looks like a big step forward.  Way to go, gang!

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/07/180711131204.html

*As an old publication-counter, I was amused to see the author list on this publication.  The first named was the grad student who spearheaded the work.  The last named was the grizzled veteran in whose lab the work was done.  In between were 44 co-authors!  No wonder these bio-types amass such imposing resumes.