• Question: Do you think they will ever be a cure for genetic diseases? and how long do you rekom it will take to find one?

    Asked by hannahjade to Anouk, Chris, Judith, Leisha, Seyyed on 19 Jun 2012. This question was also asked by paigechristina.
    • Photo: Chris Kettle

      Chris Kettle answered on 19 Jun 2012:

      Genetic disease come in so many different shapes and sizes. Unfortunately, I don’t think we’ll be able to cure everything, at least not in the next 100 years.

    • Photo: Anouk Gouvras

      Anouk Gouvras answered on 19 Jun 2012:

      Like Chris says there are so many. I don’t think we can cure them all, even if we could new ones would crop up. But I do think scientists are making a lot of progress with certain diseases and treatments. Especially with gene therapy. But a lot of work remains to be done as it is quite a risky treatment:

      For info see http://ghr.nlm.nih.gov/handbook/therapy/genetherapy and http://www.ndsu.edu/pubweb/~mcclean/plsc431/students/brandi.htm

    • Photo: Judith Sleeman

      Judith Sleeman answered on 19 Jun 2012:

      Unfortunately, I agree that we have a very long way to go. Gene therapy (see Anouk’s links) is looking very promising at the moment for some diseases such as cystic fibrosis and SMA but there is still a lot of work to be done to make sure that these methods are affective and, most of all, safe to use.

      At the moment, many genetic diseases can be tested for before a baby is born. This is usually only done if it’s known that the disease ‘runs in the family’. Then, if the tests are positive, parents end up with the stark and difficult choice of whether to have the baby or end the pregnancy. So we really do need to keep working to find cures and treatments for genetic diseases.

    • Photo: Leisha Nolen

      Leisha Nolen answered on 19 Jun 2012:

      I think we will eventually be able to cure many genetic disease, but it is going to take a very long time. I would be longer than either of us will live!

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