Sensing Gene Therapy | The Scientist Magazine® - 0 views
www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/34778/title/Sensing-Gene-Therapy/
sensing gene therapy science research
![](/images/link.gif)
-
but gene therapy may be coming to the rescue. Gene therapy’s success in treating blindness disorders –many are in late stage trials—gave hope to a field deterred by early missteps. And now gene therapy researchers are expanding their gaze to focus on all manner of sensory diseases.
-
notable success in using gene therapy techniques to treat a sensory disorder came last year when otolaryngolotist
- ...7 more annotations...
-
working on more broadly applying [the therapy] to other forms of genetic hearing loss,” he said. But in contrast to VGLUT3 mutant mice, which are missing the protein entirely, humans with missense mutations expressed a defective transporter, making it unclear whether Lustig’s strategy could translate to human VGLUT3-linked deafness.
-
Taste and smell are two of the senses that have received less attention from gene therapy researchers—but that’s changing
-
The neurons [in VGLUT3 mutant mice] are waiting for the neurotransmitter to activate them”—but no signal comes, and the mice are profoundly deaf,
-
Treating the mice intra-nasally with gene therapy vectors carrying the wildtype Ift88 gene, researchers saw significant regrowth of nasal cilia, whereas control mice given empty vectors showed no regrowth. Treated mice almost doubled in weight compared to controls.
-
So far, no scientists have designed a gene therapy to target taste buds, but at least one team is tackling an important factor in taste: saliva. If a person’s saliva production drops below 50 percent of normal, “you get tooth decay and trouble swallowing,”
-
Scientists are also developing gene therapies for disorders involving touch—or at least pain-sensing—neurons, with one drug candidate
-
Wolfe envisions that someday pain treatment could be as simple as visiting the doctor every few months for a quick skin prick “wherever it hurts”—choosing between a variety of genes to get the best effect.