Scientists were astonished to recently discover that a therapeutic gene delivered to rats in a gene therapy experiment appeared to affect subsequent generations. A US government panel that oversees gene therapy considers the possibility of somatic gene therapy inadvertently contaminating spermand eggs to be negligible. But Mohan Raizada and colleagues at the University of Florida in Gainesville announced they had delivered a therapeutic gene into the hearts of rats predisposed to high blood pressure, and that these rats and two subsequent generations appeared to be protected from hypertension. However, many experts voiced doubts over the announcement. Theodore Friedmann, director of the human gene therapy programme at the University of California in San Diego said that it would have been impressive if even a few viruses viruses travelled from the heart to the gonads, but said that the idea that all the offspring inherited the therapeutic gene seemed inconceivable. Eric Parens, a bioethicist at the Hastings Center in New York, added that, 'If these results are true, they would be a step forward for researchers who are interested in germline gene therapies, but a step back for those opposed to them'.
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Chance inheritance
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Rats inherit GM cure
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