GIRL WITH LEUKAEMIA HELPED BY GENE-EDITING TREATMENT

GIRL WITH LEUKAEMIA HELPED BY GENE-EDITING TREATMENT 


By Alfonso Kasongo 

Experimental Genome Editing therapy called CRISPR technique has promised against aggressive leukaemia in which a girl with the condition is responding positively to treatment. 

A 13-year-old girl whose leukaemia had not responded to other treatments now has no detectable cancer cells after receiving a dose of immune cells that were genetically edited to attack the cancer at the Great Ormond Street Hospital in London

After receiving a dose ,a teenager with aggressive leukaemia now has no detectable cancer cells ,now becoming the first person to receive a treatment for the condition that involves a new kind of genome editing, CRISPR called base editing.

Robert Chiesa, one of the doctors treating Alyssa, in a statement released by Great Ormond Street Hospital in London says ,"this is quite remarkable, although it is still a preliminary result, which needs to be monitored and confirmed over the next few months." 

As part of a trial, the 13-year-old,  Alyssa received a dose of immune cells from a donor that had been modified to attack the cancer and twenty-eight days later, tests revealed she was in "remission,"  a period of time when the cancer is responding to treatment or is under control.

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2350806-experimental-crispr-technique-has-promise-against-aggressive-leukaemia/

Leukaemia is caused by immune cells in the bone marrow multiplying out of control. It is usually treated by killing all bone marrow cells with chemotherapy and then replacing the bone marrow with a transplant.

This is successful in most cases. If it fails, doctors can try an approach known as CAR-T therapy.

This involves adding a gene to a type of immune cell known as a T cell that causes it to seek out and destroy cancerous cells. The modified cells are known as CAR-T cells.

Initially, all CAR-T treatments involved removing a person’s own T cells, modifying them and replacing them in that individual. If T cells from another person are used, they attack every cell in the recipient’s body. This personalised approach is extremely expensive and often it isn’t possible to obtain enough T cells to create CAR-T cells when an individual is very ill.

To overcome these drawbacks, different groups of doctors have been gene-editing T cells so that those from a single donor can be used to treat many people.




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

ZAAB QUESTIONS GOVERNMENT'S SILENCE ON PBR BILL

Image
  ZAAB QUESTIONS  GOVERNMENT'S SILENCE ON PBR BILL  By Alfonso Kasongo  A collaborative network of concerned citizens, civil society groups, faith and farmer-based organisations, working together to strengthen the growing movement for agroecology and food sovereignty has questioned government's failure to avail the proposed new Plant Breeders Rights (PBR) Bill.  Zambia Alliance for Agroecology and Biodiversity (ZAAB) maintains that controversial Bill is inappropriate for the country and must not be enacted as it aligns the country to the International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV) 1991 standards. The Consortium fears that once proposed PBR Bill is enacted in its current form, the new seed law may trigger price increase and corporate capture of seeds, as well as  country's food system.  The Alliance argues that government through the Seed Control  Certification Institute SCCI  has never presented the actual changes...
Read more

ZAMBIA LISTED AMONG 34 COUNTRIES WORLDWIDE THAT EXPERIENCED DIGITAL AUTHORITATIVE RULE

Image
  By Alfonso Kasongo  The shutdown of internet to block access to social media during the 2021 general election has earned Zambia a slot among 34 countries worldwide that experienced digital authoritative rule last year. According to a research conducted by Keep It On ,182 internet shutdowns from 34 countries were last year recorded and are documented. Sadly 19 of the 34 countries are African countries, an indication of the return of the digital authoritatism. The report  discloses that the Zambian authorities shutdown the Internet during the the tight 2021 general election to block access to social media platforms which  include among others WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.   The report however ,suggests that the country experienced digital authoritative rule which undermined the democracy of the country.    It further notes with pleasure that the shut down was fought swiftly by Chapter One Foundation through the court of law and that the Hi...
Read more

ZAMBIA'S CLIMATE FINANCING UTILISATION LACKS TRANSPARENCY, ACCOUNTABILITY

Image
ZAMBIA'S CLIMATE FINANCING UTILISATION LACKS TRANSPARENCY,  ACCOUNTABILITY ...hence prone to corruption risks,posing threats against building climate change resilience, TIZ report reviews. By Alfonso Kasongo Zambia's quest to remain climate change resilient might veer off course, if gaps such as weak climate regulatory frameworks, corruption risks and lack of transparency in the management of climate financing remain unaddressed. Ànd tackling of how the country supports mitigation and adaptation to climate change remain critical to building resilience to the worst effects. Climate resilient is generally defined as successfully copying with and managing the impacts of climate change while preventing those impacts from growing worse. This year's unprecedented global temperatures and stark devastating of climate change stress the urgency requirement for Zambia and many other countries to build climate resilience, hence the need for strong regulatory framework and transparency ...
Read more