A human has been injected with gene-editing tools to cure his disabling disease. Here’s what you need to know
Someday, researchers may be able to use gene editing to repair the flawed gene in cells that causes diseases like Hunter syndrome.
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/11/human-has-been-injected-gene-editing-tools-cure-his-disabling-disease-here-s-what-you
Gene therapy
Risks
Gene therapy has some potential risks. A gene can't easily be inserted directly into your cells. Rather, it usually has to be delivered using a carrier, called a vector.
The most common gene therapy vectors are viruses because they can recognize certain cells and carry genetic material into the cells' genes. Researchers remove the original disease-causing genes from the viruses, replacing them with the genes needed to stop disease.
This technique presents the following risks:
Unwanted immune system reaction. Your body's immune system may see the newly introduced viruses as intruders and attack them. This may cause inflammation and, in severe cases, organ failure.
Targeting the wrong cells. Because viruses can affect more than one type of cells, it's possible that the altered viruses may infect additional cells — not just the targeted cells containing mutated genes. If this happens, healthy cells may be damaged, causing other illness or diseases, such as cancer.
Infection caused by the virus. It's possible that once introduced into the body, the viruses may recover their original ability to cause disease.
Possibility of causing a tumor. If the new genes get inserted in the wrong spot in your DNA, there is a chance that the insertion might lead to tumor formation.
The gene therapy clinical trials underway in the U.S. are closely monitored by the Food and Drug Administration and the National Institutes of Health to ensure that patient safety issues are a top priority during research.
https://www.mayoclinic.org/tests-procedures/gene-therapy/about/pac-20384619
Abortion opponents protest COVID-19 vaccines’ use of fetal cells
Senior Catholic leaders in the United States and Canada, along with other antiabortion groups, are raising ethical objections to promising COVID-19 vaccine candidates that are manufactured using cells derived from human fetuses electively aborted decades ago. They have not sought to block government funding for the vaccines, which include two candidate vaccines that the Trump administration plans to support with an investment of up to $1.7 billion, as well as a third candidate made by a Chinese company in collaboration with Canada’s National Research Council (NRC). But they are urging funders and policymakers to ensure that companies develop other vaccines that do not rely on such human fetal cell lines and, in the United States, asking the government to “incentivize” firms to only make vaccines that don’t rely on fetal cells.
“It is critically important that Americans have access to a vaccine that is produced ethically: no American should be forced to choose between being vaccinated against this potentially deadly virus and violating his or her conscience,” members of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and 20 other religious, medical, and political organizations that oppose abortion wrote to Stephen Hahn, commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), in April. “Thankfully, other [COVID-19] vaccines … utilize cell lines not connected to unethical procedures and methods.”
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/06/abortion-opponents-protest-covid-19-vaccines-use-fetal-cells
Fetal Stem Cells Being Used
Several COVID-19 vaccine frontrunners, including those being developed by Moderna, Oxford University/AstraZeneca, CanSino Biologics/Beijing Institute of Biotechnology, and Inovio Pharmaceuticals, are using a human fetal kidney cell line called HEK-293 to develop their trial vaccines. HEK-293 was originally derived from kidney tissue taken from a baby girl who was aborted in the Netherlands in 1972 and later developed into a cell line in a lab in 1973.
Additionally, Janssen, the pharmaceutical division of consumer product giant Johnson & Johnson, is using the human fetal cell line PER.C6 to develop its vaccine. The PER.C6 fetal cell line was derived from retinal tissue taken from an 18-week-old baby boy who was aborted in the Netherlands in 1985 and later converted into a fetal cell line in 1995.
The U.S. government has made grants totaling nearly $2 billion in support of the development of COVID-19 vaccines using fetal cell lines. Most of this funding has been awarded through the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), a division within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
BARDA has awarded a $1.2 billion grant for AstraZeneca to fund research for the trial vaccine it is jointly developing with Oxford University. BARDA has also made grants for up to $483 million for Moderna’s vaccine and $456 million for Janssen Research and Development, LLC of Johnson & Johnson. Inovio has also received an unspecified grant for developing its vaccine candidate from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) at the Department of Defense.
On June 1st, BARDA issued a $628 million task order under a preexisting government contract with Emergent BioSolutions Inc. to accelerate development and manufacturing capacity for COVID-19 vaccines and drug treatments. Emergent BioSolutions is currently working with Janssen of Johnson & Johnson to manufacture their trial vaccines. BARDA’s funding for Emergent, however, was not awarded specifically for scaling up production of J&J’s vaccine candidate.
Worse still, the U.S. Centers of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has been producing samples of the SARS-CoV2 virus for biotech and pharmaceutical companies to use for vaccine research using fetal HEK-293T cells (a decedent cell line of HEK-293).
https://www.pop.org/which-covid-19-vaccines-are-being-developed-with-fetal-cell-lines-derived-from-aborted-babies/
ASHEVILLE, N.C. (BP) — Taxpayers have been funding government research using tissue from aborted babies for years, according to a new report, and pro-life groups are calling for the practice to halt.
CNS News broke the story last week that the Food and Drug Administration signed a contract with Advanced Bioscience Resources (ABR) to provide “human fetal tissue” to make “chimeric animals that have a human immune system.” FDA contracts with ABR reportedly date back to 2012.
“It’s horrifying news because we hope that our FDA and our federal government are going to be doing ethical research and not contributing to the trafficking of baby body parts and abortions,” David Prentice, vice president of the Charlotte Lozier Institute, a pro-life research group, said. “There are actually ethical alternatives to make these humanized mice. You don’t have to use aborted fetal tissue to do this anymore.”
Inside FDA’s research with aborted baby body parts
ASHEVILLE, N.C. (BP) — Taxpayers have been funding government research using tissue from aborted babies for years, according to a new report, and pro-life groups are calling for the practice to halt.
CNS News broke the story last week that the Food and Drug Administration signed a contract with Advanced Bioscience Resources (ABR) to provide “human fetal tissue” to make “chimeric animals that have a human immune system.” FDA contracts with ABR reportedly date back to 2012.
“It’s horrifying news because we hope that our FDA and our federal government are going to be doing ethical research and not contributing to the trafficking of baby body parts and abortions,” David Prentice, vice president of the Charlotte Lozier Institute, a pro-life research group, said. “There are actually ethical alternatives to make these humanized mice. You don’t have to use aborted fetal tissue to do this anymore.”
The FDA reportedly uses humanized mice to test the safety of medications. Giving mice a human immune system is fine, Prentice said, but he emphasized how easy it is to get the necessary human tissue without aborting a baby.
https://www.baptistpress.com/resource-library/news/inside-fdas-research-with-aborted-baby-body-parts/