[**Xena**]

How amazing is this story. Obviously it's still in its infancy stages and a lot more monitoring is needed before it can be proven to work, however the story is amazing and I hope the little girl lives a long and healthy life.

If it does work it is a big step forward even though it is a bit of a risky procedure:

http://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/health-fi...d-1226534960036

[Chelli]

That is fantastic! How lovely to see such a good news story when the media is usually saturated with doom and gloom.

Thanks for sharing

[flushthetoilet]

How lovely for her and her family.

[Livsh]

Oh gawd, what an appalingly poorly reported story!

Firstly, this is gene therapy and it's been going on for years!

Second, the virus they used might have been vaguely related to HIV, but the genes that allow the virus to replicate and invade other cells have been removed. There are some safety issues, but I would not say more than those associated with allografts normally.

This is not even vaguely the first trial of gene therapy. One of my old collaborators has treated around 20 children with ADA-SCID using a very similar process.

Yeah it's cool, but so are the other trials in gene therapy...oh and for the love of pete where is the link to the paper! A quick look on pubmed and I can't find anything, if these jokers have released trial data from ONE participant in advance of peer review then they are idiots!

[purplekitty]

Link to a more detailed article at the bottom.

- "Penn researchers first reported on this type of successful T cell treatment last year. Three adults were treated and two had complete remission. Their cases were detailed in the New England Journal of Medicine and Science Translational Medicine in August 2011.
Two years after treatment, the two adults still have no evidence of disease — they also still have the engineered T cells present in their bodies, a major scientific breakthrough, researchers said.

“The problem is that lots of people have figured out how to engineer T cells, lots of people figured out how to grow T cells in a lab, but nobody figured out how to make the cells actually grow in the patient,” Grupp said.

That is, until now.

This weekend, researchers shared new data showing that nine of 12 patients with advanced leukemia in the clinical trial, including Emily and another child after her, responded to treatment.

“When we first treated our first three adults ... the results came back over a period of six weeks, and at that point I knew that my life was forever changed,” said June, the Richard W. Vague professor in immunotherapy in the department of pathology and laboratory medicine and director of translational research in Penn’s Abramson Cancer Center." -

Read more here: http://www.centredaily.com/2012/12/09/3430...6#storylink=cpy

[**Xena**]

Thanks Purple kitty

[Livsh]

hmmm, so it's only conference proceedings at the moment. I'd be wary of getting excited about this before it is published in a peer reviewed journal with other subjects and long-term follow-up especially for therapy-associated oncogenesis.

I get a bit narked by these stories because I used to work in this area and there were loads of amazing things being done with viruses and other vectors. However, the media generally chooses to only run stories where bad sh*t happened or kids got better...not stories about decades of work culminating in gene therapies that are actually on the market right now.

[purplekitty]

I get a bit narked by these stories because I used to work in this area and there were loads of amazing things being done with viruses and other vectors. However, the media generally chooses to only run stories where bad sh*t happened or kids got better...not stories about decades of work culminating in gene therapies that are actually on the market right now.

The media often runs stories which build up false hope for cancer sufferers.Some things are in the preliminary stages and may not be generally available for years.
Part of the problem is the marketing and public relations departments of unis and hospitals themselves, which are looking for publicity which can lead to more dollars.