11/30/2011 PERMALINK
Clinical trial for muscular dystrophy demonstrates safety of customized gene therapy. Researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have shown that it is safe to cut and paste together different viruses in an effort to create the ultimate vehicle for gene therapy. In a phase I clinical trial, the investigators found no side effects from using a chimeric virus to deliver replacement genes for an essential muscle protein in patients with muscular dystrophy. "This trial demonstrates that gene therapy is no longer limited by the viruses we find in nature, and should usher in the next generation of viral delivery systems for human gene transfer," said senior study author R. Jude Samulski, PhD, professor of pharmacology and director of the Gene Therapy Center at UNC.