Word: dna
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...infants born in the U.S. are afflicted with often debilitating and sometimes fatal genetic diseases. In most cases, no effective treatment exists for these disorders, which are caused by one or more faulty or missing genes among the estimated 100,000 genes in human DNA...
Each gene consists of a segment of the DNA that is found in the nucleus of every one of the body's 100 trillion cells (with the exception of red blood cells, which have no nuclei). And each gene is responsible for the manufacture of a particular protein that contributes to either the structure or the functioning of the body. If the gene is defective, protein synthesis will be faulty and a deformity or genetic disease will result...
...mouse leukemia retro-viruses into which human ADA genes had been spliced. The retroviruses, rendered harmless by genetic engineering, were the vectors, the vehicles that would deliver the genes to their target. They invaded the T cells and, as retroviruses are wont to do, burrowed into the T- cell DNA, carrying the ADA gene with them. Finally, a billion or so T cells, now equipped with ADA genes and floating in the gray solution suspended above the little girl's bed in Bethesda, were dripped into her veins...
Mark O. Goodarzi '93, for example, has spent the past two months in a Harvard physics lab, working with Associate Professor of Biology Victor R. Ambros. Goodarzi injects DNA into mutant worms to locate specific genes...
...after years of debate about the ethics of genetic engineering and lengthy tests in animals, the first human trials are about to begin. Last week two experimental techniques passed a major regulatory hurdle, winning approval from the National Institutes of Health's Recombinant DNA Advisory Committee. The official go-ahead from the director of the NIH, as well as a nod from the Food and Drug Administration, is expected to follow within a few months for at least one of the experiments, clearing the way for human gene treatments as early as this fall. "This is the first step toward...