Word: isner
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...results, gene therapy is finally making major strides--although not the way doctors thought it would. Once they hoped to cure diseases by repairing defective genes. Now it seems a lot easier to determine what proteins the broken genes should be making and replace them instead. Dr. Jeffrey Isner at St. Elizabeth's Medical Center in Boston has achieved remarkable results with a protein called vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF2) in restoring circulation in the legs of diabetics and, more impressively, stimulating new vessel growth in patients with severe heart disease. Says former Eli Lilly chairman Randall Tobias...
Whether [endostain] can be implemented [ to help humans] based on the animal studies remains to be seen," said Isner, who is chief of vaascular medicine and cardiovascular research at St.Elizabeth's Medical Center in Boston and a professor of medicine and pathology at Tufts University...
...Phase I trial, Isner injected a saline solution containing his naked DNA through a small "keyhole" incision in the chest of his heart patients and directly into their heart muscle. A few weeks later, tests on everyone in the trial group showed greatly improved blood flow to the heart muscle though tiny new blood vessels that bypassed clogged arteries...
...does the naked DNA, without viral assistance, penetrate the walls of the heart-muscle cells? "To be perfectly honest," Isner confesses, "no one really understands how it gets there." But unlike most other therapeutic genes, which must find their way into millions of cells to have a therapeutic effect, VEG-F needs to invade only relatively few. Its protein product, issuing from the cell, can act on untold numbers of surrounding, untreated cells. Quips Isner in a parody of the Marine Corps slogan, "All we're looking for are a few good cells...
Floyd Stokes, recovered, vigorous and hard at work on his Texas ranch last week, needs no convincing. "Dr. Isner and these fellows had to do some really far-out thinking to come up with this treatment," he says. "I owe my life to them...