how cool is this?

[aruan]

Gene therapy takes a step forward | USA Today

For the first time, doctors have used gene therapy to restore vision in patients with a rare and usually incurable form of blindness, researchers announced Sunday.

They use viruses to alter DNA! Makes you wonder what else can be cured.

Comments

[science-vixen.livejournal.com]

Very cool, and very happy for the patients.
I'm still not too sure whether tinkering with virii is a good idea though.

[gjstruthseeker.livejournal.com]

Not according to the movies I've seen. But it is a genius method, programming a virus to, I suppose, eat away a portion of faulty DNA. Would it work for replacing genes as well though?

[science-vixen.livejournal.com]

I presume that would work. Viral mutation rate is rather high. Any gene-portion they would introduce would be part of the virus itself. Thus the question is whether the virus-installed gene-portion will be any more stable then the part you're replacing.