Gene Therapy
By Hannah Shriver
What is Gene Therapy?
Gene Therapy is when doctors use genes to prevent or help diminish a disease.
How is Gene Therapy used to treat disease?
Gene Therapy requires the addition of cells to compensate for strange or abnormal genes. This creates a beneficial protein which causes a normal copy of the gene to be introduced.
Who created Gene Therapy?
Theodore Friedmann
Theodore Friedmann was one of the scientists who wrote the paper "Gene therapy for human genetic disease?" this was the first idea of Gene Therapy.
Dr. French W Anderson
Dr. French W Anderson was the doctor who preformed the first Gene Therapy treatment. He also started working with cells and disease.
Dr. Steven Rosenburg
Dr. Steven Rosenburg worked with Dr. French W Anderson to test and see how safe Gene Therapy would be for cancer patients.
Who was the first Gene Therapy success?
The first Gene Therapy patient was a 4 year old girl who had adenosine deaminase (ADA) deficiency, in 1990. ADA is a genetic disease in which the body cannot defend itself from infections. Her surgery was the first success in Gene Therapy.