Word: cystic
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...medically appropriate. Suppose, for example, a woman knew she was about to become sterile, either because of chemotherapy or through exposure to toxic substances. She might consider having an embryo cloned for future use. Or suppose a couple knew that their children had a chance of inheriting hemophilia or cystic fibrosis. Researchers have developed DNA-analysis techniques to screen embryos for such disorders, but the procedures require snipping cells off embryos, a process that sometimes kills them. In such situations, having a couple of extra clones around could mean the difference between passing on a defective gene or giving birth...
...Using a genetically altered common virus as a vehicle, researchers have successfully ferried healthy genes into the diseased nose cells of three people suffering from cystic fibrosis. Once they had infiltrated, the healthy genes restored missing cell functions and reversed the abnormality that causes the disease. The next step is to apply this technique to diseased lung cells. Cystic fibrosis is the country's most common fatal inherited disease...
...hospital boasts of establishing the first independent physical therapy department in 1914 and culturing the polio virus in 1949. Today, its staff is dealing with urban violence as it affects children's public health, operating one of the world's largest centers for cystic fibrosis research and treatment and running regional centers for kidney and bone marrow transplants...
...newly discovered defect does not in itself produce cancer in the way that an inherited defect causes cystic fibrosis or sickle-cell anemia. "What the mutant gene does is create a predisposition to cancer," Vogelstein explains. "And it's only with additional mutations after birth that the cancer will appear...
Other methods are more straightforward. In a forthcoming cystic fibrosis trial, Anderson says, doctors will simply "infuse the vector right down into the lungs. And there are even enemas of vectors for colon cancer...