An experimental gene therapy that makes use of an unlikely helper, the AIDS virus, has successfully treated 48 out of 50 children who were born without an immune system due to a deadly disorder, a new study shows.
Such results were published on Tuesday by the New England Journal of Medicine and presented at an online American Society of Gene & Cell Therapy conference.
All but two of the 50 children who were given the experimental therapy as part of the study now have healthy germ-fighting abilities.
“We’re taking what otherwise would have been a fatal disease” and healing most of these children with a single treatment, study leader Donald Kohn of UCLA Mattel Children’s Hospital, told the Associated Press news agency.