Gene Therapy

Gene therapy using an adenovirus vector. In some cases, the adenovirus will insert the new gene into a cell. If the treatment is successful, the new gene will make a functional protein to treat a disease.

In the medicine field, gene therapy (also called human gene transfer) is the therapeutic delivery of nucleic acid into a patient's cells as a drug to treat disease.^[1][2] The first attempt at modifying human DNA was performed in 1980 by Martin Cline, but the first successful nuclear gene transfer in humans, approved by the National Institutes of Health, was performed in May 1989.^[3] The first therapeutic use of gene transfer as well as the first direct insertion of human DNA into the nuclear genome was performed by French Anderson in a trial starting in September 1990.

Between 1989 and February 2016, over 2,300 clinical trials were conducted, with more than half of them in phase I.^[4]

Not all medical procedures that introduce alterations to a patient's genetic makeup can be considered gene therapy. Bone marrow transplantation and organ transplants in general have been found to introduce foreign DNA into patients.^[5] Gene therapy is defined by the precision of the procedure and the intention of direct therapeutic effect.

Approaches

Following early advances in genetic engineering of bacteria, cells, and small animals, scientists started considering how to apply it to medicine. Two main approaches were considered – replacing or disrupting defective genes.^[28] Scientists focused on diseases caused by single-gene defects, such as cystic fibrosis, haemophilia, muscular dystrophy, thalassemia, and sickle cell anemia. Glybera treats one such disease, caused by a defect in lipoprotein lipase.^[27]

DNA must be administered, reach the damaged cells, enter the cell and either express or disrupt a protein.^[29] Multiple delivery techniques have been explored. The initial approach incorporated DNA into an engineered virus to deliver the DNA into a chromosome.^[30][31] Naked DNA approaches have also been explored, especially in the context of vaccine development.^[32]

Generally, efforts focused on administering a gene that causes a needed protein to be expressed. More recently, increased understanding of nuclease function has led to more direct DNA editing, using techniques such as zinc finger nucleases and CRISPR. The vector incorporates genes into chromosomes. The expressed nucleases then knock out and replace genes in the chromosome. As of 2014 these approaches involve removing cells from patients, editing a chromosome and returning the transformed cells to patients.^[33]

Gene editing is a potential approach to alter the human genome to treat genetic diseases,^[34] viral diseases,^[35] and cancer.^[36] As of 2016 these approaches were still years from being medicine.^[37][38]