AT LAST there is hope for sufferers of the fatal disease muscular dystrophy.
Researchers in the US have managed to treat the disease in mice using gene
therapy—even though the gene needed is an absolute whopper.
Children with severe Duchenne muscular dystrophy suffer from progressive
muscle wasting. They are usually confined to a wheelchair in their teens and die
in their early twenties. Until now, gene therapy has been impossible because the
gene that needs to be replaced is the largest ever found—over 3 million
base pairs long. The viruses usually used to deliver genes to cells only…
