DNA editing has the capacity to treat many diseases, but how to do this safely and equitably remains unclear.
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André O. Hudson, Rochester Institute of Technology and Gary Skuse, Rochester Institute of Technology
Following the controversial births of the first gene-edited babies, a major focus of the Third International Summit on Human Genome Editing was responsible use of CRISPR.
Molecular research like that conducted at the African Centre of Excellence for Genomics of Infectious Diseases in Nigeria is key to medical breakthroughs.
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Life-saving blood is needed for everything from treating cancers and chronic conditions to helping trauma victims. But blood donations have dropped to crisis levels during the pandemic.
Our ancestors’ environment and diets, and the limits of our biology, have led to adaptations that have improved human survival through natural selection. But we remain prone to illness and disease anyway.
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Evolutionary medicine uses our ancestral history to explain disease prevalence and inform care for conditions like Type 2 diabetes. It also challenges the bio-ethnocentrism of western medicine.
Even without drugs, nets or an understanding of what caused malaria, human bodies were still fighting against the parasite – and winning.
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Once genetic lesions for diseases such as cystic fibrosis and haemophilia were identified, the idea of replacing or correcting defective genes grew into what we now call “gene therapy”.
The airways inside the human lung.
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Cystic fibrosis is the most common genetic disease among Caucasians. Now scientists believe they have discovered the origin of this often lethal genetic mutation and how it spread throughout Europe.
Gene therapy is allowing us to switch on natural beneficial mutations to counteract the effects of negative mutations in diseases such as sickle cell anaemia.
A simple solution to a persistent problem.
Ashok A. Kumar
Every year, 300,000 children are born with sickle-cell disease, primarily in Africa and India. It is a genetic disorder that causes some blood cells to become abnormally shaped. The result is that those…
A child in Senegal waiting to be tested for sickle cell anaemia - in parts of Africa up to 40% of the population can carry the sickle cell gene.
EPA/Pierre Holtz
Genetic mutations that affect our blood cells’ haemoglobin are the most common of all mutations. It has been estimated that around 5% of the world’s population carry a defective globin gene. Haemoglobin…