Gene therapy: An Interview with an Unfortunate Pioneer
September 16, 2009
Ten years ago this month the promise of using normal genes to cure hereditary defects crashed and burned, as Jesse Gelsinger, an 18-year-old from Tucson, Ariz., succumbed to multiorgan failure during a gene therapy trial at the University of Pennsylvania. Today the boardroom of the Translational Research Lab at the university is filled with artifacts reminiscent of the trial. Books such as Building Public Trust and Biosafety in the Laboratory sit on the shelves, and “IL-6†and “TNF-α†are scribbled on the whiteboard—abbreviations representing some of the very immune factors that fatally spiraled out of control in Gelsinger’s body. (Scientific American)
