About 10% of gene therapy trials have used liposomes . These are hollow microscopic spheres of phospholipid, and can be filled with DNA or other molecules during assembly. The …
Severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID) occurs when both the B cells and T cells of the immune system are defective and results in an almost totally defective immune response. Children …
Retroviruses infect many types of cells in mammals. They need dividing cells for successful infection, and will not infect many tissues where host cell growth and division have come …
About one in 2000 white children suffer from cystic fibrosis . This condition is due to homozygous recessive mutations. In other words two defective copies of the gene, one …
Adenoviruses are relatively simple, double-stranded DNA viruses that infect humans and other vertebrates. The virus particle consists of a simple icosahedral shell, or capsid, containing a single linear dsDNA …
The original idea behind gene therapy was curing hereditary defects by replacing defective genes. However, there is no inherent reason why gene therapy must only be “defensive” and suppress …
During replacement gene therapy, we normally think of replacing the whole defective gene with a complete functional copy. However, some genetic defects consist of just a single base change, …
Genetic engineering means that we alter an organism permanently so that the changes will be stably inherited. For multicellular organisms this implies deliberate alteration of the DNA in the …
The polymerase chain reaction (PCR) amplifies small samples of DNA into large amounts, much as a photocopier makes many copies of one sheet of paper. The DNA is amplified …
Once the gene of interest is cloned into a vector, the construct can be put back into a bacterial cell through a process called transformation. Here the “naked” DNA …