IN THE GENES: FOUR GREAT LEAPS FORWARD

Blood cancer

CAR-T therapy was recently approved by NHS England, for use in children and young people with a type of acute lymphoblastic leukaemia, the most common form of childhood cancer. The therapy works by harvesting a patient’s own T-cells (a type of immune cell), genetically modifying them to attack cancer cells, and reintroducing them into the patient’s bloodstream.

Malaria

Researchers at Imperial College London successfully used a gene-editing tool, Crispr, to block reproduction in female Anopheles

gambiae mosquitoes, which transmit malaria. A category of genetic engineering, known as a gene drive, it has the potential to eradicate mosquito populations altogether – but it will be five to 10 years before it can be tested in the wild.

HIV

Genetically editing Hiv-positive patients to stop the virus attaching to their immune system could be on the horizon after a British man, known as the ‘London Patient’, received stem cells from a donor with natural immunity to HIV (which occurs in some people through a gene mutation). Earlier this month, doctors said the patient had been free of disease for 18 months.

Blindness

Luxterna, a gene therapy for the treatment of a rare, inherited form of retinal blindness, has recently gained approval from EU regulators. It is a one-off therapy that works by injecting a corrective copy of a specific gene directly into the patient’s retinal cells.