Re: Albino mice turned black

CurtAdams@aol.com
Mon, 30 Nov 1998 18:26:24 EST

In a message dated 11/30/98 2:56:19 PM, patrickw@cs.monash.edu.au wrote:

>Wow. Perhaps in vivo gene therapy actually will work in my lifetime. Double
>wow.
>
>I am not sure I am reading this right, but does the technology in principle
>allow you to repair any (and all) mutations in an organism?

This advance only consisted of repairing a known mutation in cells removed from the body. So to use it to fix all mutations in a human body, you'd have to take each cell out of the body, sequence its genome for mutations, repair them, and then put the cell back. Given that you have a couple trillion
cells, and that each individual sequencing is the equivalent of the entire human genome project, you have a lot of work to do.

It *is* a promising advance - you might be able to alter, say, blood stem cells without making them immunogenic, and it's great for all kinds of research.
But it's not *that* good.