Various gene therapy-based tests have been conducted on the guinea pigs as model animals. The gene therapy-based experiments have shown that deafness can be cured with the help of gene therapy. One of the main reasons of the deafness is the destruction of hair cells in the cochlea. A gene that has been known to stimulate hair growth in the cochlea is Atoh1 and this gene has been tested by being delivered through adenovirus. When the gene was delivered with the adenovirus, the hair regrowth in the cochleae was triggered based on which more than 80% regrowth of the hearing was repaired. New experiments are being conducted on the delivery of genes that can repair errors in the messenger RNA because of the presence of defective and nonfunctional genes. Using this technique, cystic fibrosis, thalassemia and various kinds of leukemia can be treated (Wells, 2004, p. 1365).
Conclusion
The technique of gene therapy has great potential. There are a wide scope of medical disorders and conditions that have been treated by gene therapy. These include various forms of cancer. There is no doubt about the fact that the technique of gene therapy is very expensive but the scope that the...
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