Gene editing saves girl dying from leukaemia in world first

Re:Gene editing saves girl dying from leukaemia in world first by NotSammyHagar on Saturday November 07, 2015 @03:32PM (#10526116)

This is an incredible medical advance, the old idea from at least the 70s actually working. It will take a long time until we can apply this to most diseases or conditions. There are so many different causes and interactions behind medical problems, even those that can be attacked by genetics + specially designed org like this. I'm sad my mom's cancer couldn't be treated by something like this.

Live long enough, and we'll keep seeing amazing things!

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Gene editing saves girl dying from leukaemia in world first by nonbel on Sunday November 08, 2015 @03:42PM (#10529801)

They call this (also CRISPR) gene editing, but interestingly when I looked at the literature whats going on is always this:

1) Cells are put in a dish

2) Gene "editing" tech is added to the dish

3) Most, if not the vast majority of the cells die. Or this information is simply not reported, even if the authors did report it in other papers so they know it is important.

4) The surviving cells consist largely of those with "edited" genes. Control cells, who were not exposed to the "editing" conditions, also have a small percentage of "edited" genes.

It sounds to me like they are selectively killing the cells that are not already mutants. I read around 8 papers on CRISPR, none of them addressed this possibility (or mention it and cite someone who did address it).

Of course, in terms of getting the desired mutants for the clinic it works just as well. Misunderstanding why it works is not good though.

[ Parent | on HN ]