Question: if cancer runs in your family,is there a way to get rid of those particular genes?
Keywords: cancer, gene, prevention
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Gene therapy is something that has been researched for many years, the ability to change a persons DNA to take out the genes causing a disease, or to prevent one. One of the best ways to do this is to use viruses, as they already change our DNA when they infect us. In fact we use special viruses in our research to “knock in” or “knock out” genes in human or animal cells. The problem is, targetting all of the cells in a human body at once, that’s going to be a real challenge!
There is also the problem of public perception. Genetically modified plants are the first hurdle we need to get over to get to gene therapies in humans. Scientists have been changing plants so that they don’t produce toxins, or are more resitant to drought or insects. They are also making them produce more nutrients that might be defiicient in places like africa. These experiments are working very well, but people don’t like the idea that new plants with new DNA might somehow take over the world or something silly like that. Those people don’t tend to understand that whenever you breed new flowers or vegetable varieties you are genetically modifying the next generation and people have been doing that for centuries, and they haven’t taken over the earth yet!
I hope one day we will get there, as it is a really promising area of research
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Yes there are several ways to get rid of “bad” genes and replace them with “good” genes. Most established method is known as “gene therapy”. The gene therapy concept was first emerged in early 1970s. Unfortunately majority of the early clinical trials failed and doctors stopped using gene therapy. However scientists learned heaps from these early failures and significantly improved gene therapy to a stage where it became a quite solid treatment method today. Since 2006, gene therapy has been applied to various diseases.
If you are specifically asking for cancer, the only cancer (that I know) which can be treated using gene therapy is “chronic myelogenous leukemia”. But I definitely believe the gene therapy will become a widely accepted method in near future.
In fact, I am using a very similar approach to gene therapy in my research. The outcome of my research may dramatically improve gene therapy treatments. If you guys are interested more, feel free to ask – I am happy to explain in detail.
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I agree with the other scientist, gene therapy is the way forward for trying to get rid of bad genes. But unfortunately this won’t completely reduce your risk of getting cancer. Cancer can arise from sporadic mutations to genes which don’t depend on your family history. Hopefully in the future gene therapy can help with those too if the cancer can be caught early.
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