Scientists Reverse Sickle Cell Disease for the First Time Using Gene Therapy

Sickle cell disease is one of the most concerning diseases of the 21st century. There are millions of people who are suffering from this disease worldwide. It is basically a genetic disease. In this disease, the Red Blood Corpuscles of our body loses its natural shape and turns into a crescent shape. When the RBC turns into a crescent shape it can not hold the required amount of oxygen anymore and if this problem gets significant then the patient will suffer from Anemia.

The worst part is, this disease can't be cured in the medical science. But, now its looks like scientists and doctors have managed to take care of that crisis and they are likely to introduce a new gene therapy which can take care of that disease.

This gene therapy to cure sickle cell disease does not have a huge amount of field test so far. But there are few field tests are going on. This gene therapy was tested on a French teenager and so far, the early signs are really promising. It is expected that this therapy should go under more field tests and if the result goes right then this therapy should be efficient to treat millions of people.

In Sickle cell disease, the Red Blood Corpuscle of the patient's body loses its natural shape. In a case of the Red Blood Corpuscle, if it loses its shape slightly then it can hold the required amount of oxygen. Therefore, to get the RBC back into the required shape, genes are inserted using a virus. The genes are inserted in the bone marrow of the patient and these genes help the RBC to get back its elasticity thus the RBCs can hold required amount of oxygen.

Therefore, if this technique is executed probably, then it would be a huge revolution in the medical science and the treatment of millions of people would be possible.

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Gene therapy