Word: cystic
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Like every medical revolution before it, the field of gene therapy began with the vision of a brighter future. Researchers promised to cure such hereditary disorders as cystic fibrosis, muscular dystrophy and sickle-cell anemia, not with conventional medicine but with the magic of genetic engineering, supplanting defective genes with their normal counterparts. Patients dreamed of a life free of the diseases they had inherited. Venture capitalists dreamed of untold riches and backed the leading researchers in the field with millions of dollars of seed money...
Researchers at Harvard Medical School reported last Wednesday the discovery of a faster, more specific technique to locate defective genes linked to diseases such as cystic fibrosis and cancer...
...Cystic fibrosis patients taking the drug Pulmozyme showed a reduction in lung infection and improvement in breathing, a study has found. The drug is the first new treatment for the disease in three decades...
Many other vectors are now being tested. Dr. Ronald Crystal of New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center was jogging one day when he had the inspired notion of delivering genes to the lungs of cystic fibrosis patients using the adenovirus that causes the common cold. "This is a virus that has taken millions of years to evolve to do what it does -- get into the lung," says Crystal, who plans to begin a new set of trials with the virus in the next month or so. One of his challenges is to render the adenovirus harmless and keep it from...
...another. A report by the National Academy of Sciences last year found that Americans are already losing their jobs and health insurance based on information uncovered in genetic screens. In one case, a California health maintenance organization discovered that the fetus a client was carrying had the gene for cystic fibrosis. The HMO told her it would pay for an abortion, but that if she chose to have the child, it would not pay for any treatments. The woman had the child, and the threat of a lawsuit forced the HMO to back down...