Why is gene line therapy illegal, but body cell gene therapy legal?
To date germ line therapy has been carried out on animal eggs, sperm and embryos but at present it is illegal to do this on humans.
It is however possible to modify the faulty genes in the cells of a grown child or an adult to cure diseases like cystic fibrosis. This is called body cell gene therapy.
Why is it illegal when we are allowed to do body cell gene therapy? Is gene line therapy dangerous?
One Response
KristenA
02 Feb 2010
I believe you are referring to the differences between stem cells and gene therapy???
As for gene therapy, it has gone on to clinical trials. A few years ago (maybe 5-10 years) they were doing clinical trials, and a healthy 18 year old male died. Ever since then, they have been very strict on performing it.
Also, I don’t believe they have been very successful in keeping the new gene in the secondary generation of cells. It is one thing to get it into the cells, its another to get it into the chromosome permanently and have it replicate enough to have an entire organ have the proper gene.
Its all pretty complicated science.