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April 08, 2005

Another Great Advance In Research

The rapid advance of science amazes me. The implications of this amazing bit of research for curing Huntington's Disease are obvious...

A team led by scientists at Sangamo Biosciences in Richmond, California, US, say they have corrected the single gene mutation that causes the fatal X-chromosome-linked severe combined immune deficiency (X-SCID) - or “bubble boy” disease - in human T-cells. They treated the cells in test tubes with the company’s proprietary type of “zinc finger nucleases” (ZFNs) and have published their results in Nature.

ZFNs are proteins made up of “fingers” of around 30 amino acids and stabilised by a zinc atom. Each finger binds to a specific combination of DNA bases and is attached to a DNA-cutting enzyme called a nuclease.

By using different combinations of amino acids, they can be designed to latch on to DNA at exactly the place where the mutated gene lies and cut it. This triggers the body’s natural repair process, called homologous recombination, which corrects the gene where the DNA was cut, The researchers provided the cells with a copy of the correct gene as a template.

The article.

Posted by Dave at April 8, 2005 06:08 PM

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Comments

This is good news. I'm 22 now, I wonder if i'll actually see a cure before things kick in for me...

Posted by: markus316 [TypeKey Profile Page] at April 9, 2005 07:27 PM

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