Gene therapy at CHOP allowed a deaf boy to hear. But some deaf people object to the treatment.

  • 📰 PhillyDailyNews
  • ⏱ Reading Time:
  • 54 sec. here
  • 2 min. at publisher
  • 📊 Quality Score:
  • News: 25%
  • Publisher: 67%

United States Headlines News

United States Latest News,United States Headlines

A second deaf patient is undergoing the treatment, produced by Eli Lilly, at CHOP on Friday.

Children's Hospital of Philadelphia surgeon John Germiller was among the world's first doctors to successfully treat a deaf child with gene therapy, using the type of needle he is holding here.An 11-year-old deaf boy is now able to hear in one ear after undergoing a gene therapy treatment at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, one of the first such cases in the world. A second boy, aged 3, is scheduled to receive the treatment at CHOP on Friday.

via email. “Is it ethically sound to experiment on a child for a non-life-saving treatment from which the benefit is questionable, and who cannot legally consent?” “The microphone is working. The wire’s working,” he said. “But there’s a break in the electrical connection.”But this particular recipe was too big to load onto gene therapy “vectors” — the inactivated viruses that are used to deliver the genetic instructions inside recipients’ cells.

Next came a third tool, an ultra-thin needle with the end bent at a slight angle. He inserted it past the eardrum and through a tiny membrane on the outer wall of the cochlea, then depressed a small pump to inject two droplets of the therapeutic solution. Sara Blick-Nitko, a post-doctoral scholar at the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry, said gene therapy makes sense if it could help an older person who lost hearing as an adult. But for someone who is born deaf, the treatment smacks of eugenics, erasing a genetic trait without regard for its associated rich culture and language.

Source: Healthcare Press (healthcarepress.net)

 

Thank you for your comment. Your comment will be published after being reviewed.
Please try again later.
We have summarized this news so that you can read it quickly. If you are interested in the news, you can read the full text here. Read more:

 /  🏆 89. in US

United States Latest News, United States Headlines

Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.

Angiodema: Gene therapy blocks painful hereditary disorderA single dose of gene therapy was enough to stop the painful swelling attacks caused by angiodema.
Source: bbchealth - 🏆 143. / 63 Read more »

Eli Lilly’s stock surges toward a 5th straight record after an earnings beat and upbeat outlookTomi Kilgore is MarketWatch's deputy investing and corporate news editor and is based in New York. You can follow him on Twitter TomiKilgore.
Source: MarketWatch - 🏆 3. / 97 Read more »

First-Ever CRISPR-Based Therapy Approved for Sickle Cell DiseaseU.S. patients with sickle cell disease now have a novel treatment option: the first-ever CRISPR-based therapy.for use in patients age 12 years and older. In addition to offering hope of relief for people with severe forms of the painful blood disorder, the treatment, called Casgevy, is the world’s first to genetically tweak cells using theAnother gene therapy for sickle cell disease, called Lyfgenia and developed by biotech company bluebird bio, based in Somerville, Mass., was also approved December 8. Getting a green light for the first CRISPR-based medicine is exciting, says David Altshuler, chief scientific officer at Boston-based Vertex Pharmaceuticals, which developed the drug in a joint venture with CRISPR Therapeutics, a company in Cambridge, Mass. But the fact that the drug fills an unmet need for underserved patients is “more compelling to me, personally, than the fact that it’s CRISPR.” , most of them Black or Latino, have sickle cell disease. It is caused by a genetic defect in hemoglobin, the oxygen-carrying protein in red blood cells
Source: ScienceNews - 🏆 286. / 63 Read more »

Richard Scolyer: Melanoma doctor's high-stakes gamble to treat his brain cancerRichard Scolyer hopes the life-saving melanoma research he pioneered could treat his brain tumour.
Source: bbchealth - 🏆 143. / 63 Read more »

Free Checklist: Am I a Highly Sensitive Person?Learn the characteristics of a highly sensitive person, how hypersensitivity differs from sensory processing disorder, the link to ADHD, and how to treat it.
Source: ADDitudeMag - 🏆 311. / 61 Read more »

The neuroscientist harnessing the placebo effect to help soothe painHow exactly the placebo effect works is still a mystery, but neuroscientist Luana Colloca is working to find the answers in order to change the way we treat pain
Source: newscientist - 🏆 541. / 51 Read more »