Word: wara
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Aware of the risk, both mothers chose to have amniocentesis after becoming pregnant again last fall. The test results showed that neither fetus was producing ADA and that the babies would have SCID. It was then that Dr. Diane Wara, the pediatric immunologist who had treated the Rigginses' other child, suggested the stem-cell trial. Lori Riggins was easily convinced. "You only get a once-in-a-lifetime chance to get large amounts of stem cells," she says. "That's at birth, and we didn't want to pass up that chance...
...umbilical blood. She rushed it to Childrens Hospital in Los Angeles, where a team led by Drs. Donald Kohn and Kenneth Weinberg separated the stem cells and endowed them with normal ADA genes. Then the newly equipped stem cells were injected into the baby's bloodstream. Two days later, Wara went through the procedure on Zachary Riggins in San Francisco, after his stem cells had been shuttled to Kohn and Weinberg in Los Angeles for genetic engineering...
...guard against the possibility that the gene therapy will not work, doctors will initially treat both infants with weekly injections of PEG-ADA. "We have no intention of letting these children get sick while we're waiting to see if the stem cells ((become functional))," says Wara. "When we see that this has happened, then we will start withdrawing the enzyme replacement." But will it happen? "My personal hunch is that this is going to benefit these two children," says Kohn. "If it does, then we can go on to more common diseases...