snip out the bad

Two institutions in the UK have been studying gene modification within cells to replace the incorrectly modified genes with the correct ones. A study has been done at both Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute and University of Cambridge to take iPS (cells that have been induced to become pluripotent) and change the genetic defects that they might have. In this study, they took skin cells of a patient, with a genetic liver disorder, and made them into induced pluripotent cells (iPS) then they "snipped out" the part of the gene that was causing the liver disorder, these special scissors that cut out the gene is called zinc-finger nucleases. After this is done the correct genetic material is put in it's place with the help of piggyBAC transposon, and this fixes both of the incorrect alleles that cause the disorder. These cells were then grown into liver cells and put into mice that had this liver disorder. The result show that these cells restored proper liver function even after six weeks.

After doing student lecture presentations and seeing how genetic defects can cause so many horrendous diseases, this interested me so much because this is hope for the future in eliminating diseases caused by gene mutations. This is research could be the cure to so many different types of disease starting from Aicardi-Goutieres Syndrome Disorder (which was my student lecture disorder) to even cancer of many different types.

http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2011-10/editing-human-stem-cell-genes-could-let-patients-grow-their-own-cures