From: CurtAdams@aol.com
Date: Mon Nov 30 1998 - 16:26:24 MST
In a message dated 11/30/98 2:56:19 PM, patrickw@cs.monash.edu.au wrote:
>Wow. Perhaps in vivo gene therapy actually will work in my lifetime. Double
>wow.
>
>I am not sure I am reading this right, but does the technology in principle
>allow you to repair any (and all) mutations in an organism?
This advance only consisted of repairing a known mutation in cells removed
from the body. So to use it to fix all mutations in a human body, you'd
have to take each cell out of the body, sequence its genome for mutations,
repair them, and then put the cell back. Given that you have a couple
trillion
cells, and that each individual sequencing is the equivalent of the entire
human genome project, you have a lot of work to do.
It *is* a promising advance - you might be able to alter, say, blood stem
cells without making them immunogenic, and it's great for all kinds of
research.
But it's not *that* good.
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