North Carolina – New Gene Therapy For Hemophilia Causes Few Bleeds
December 11, 2013; Posted by: webleed staff
University of North Carolina School of Medicine and the Medical College of Wisconsin researchers release information on new gene therapy study.
New advancements in hemophilia keep coming and coming this week. Good news out of Chapel Hill, North Carolina today regarding gene therapy for those who have the bleeding disorder hemophilia.
According to a press release from NewsWise obtained from the University of North Carolina School of Medicine, a new kind of gene therapy led to a dramatic decline in bleeding events in dogs with naturally occurring hemophilia A (factor VIII deficiency). Before the animals received the gene treatment, they experienced about five serious bleeding events a year and after receiving the new therapy they experienced substantially fewer bleeding events over three years.
“The promise and the hope for gene therapy is that people with hemophilia would be given a single therapeutic injection and then would express the protein they are missing for an extended period of time, ideally for years or even their entire lifetimes,” said Tim Nichols, director of the Francis Owen Blood Research Laboratory at UNC and co-author of the paper. “The hope is that after successful gene therapy, people with hemophilia would experience far fewer bleeding events because their blood would clot better.”
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Photo Credit – University of North Carolina School of Medicine
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