The genome project sequenced all three billion base pairs of human DNA, revealing the instructions cells need to build all the proteins in the body. But that was just a warm-up, according to Thomas C. Spelsberg, PhD, of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn.
Gene therapy as a treatment for cancer has advanced from the theoretical to the possible: in a pilot study published in August in the journal Science, investigators reported that two of 17 patients with advanced melanoma responded to a treatment known as genetically engineered therapy.
After a hiatus associated with a checkered past, gene therapy is again showing promise in several fields of medicine, and otolaryngology is no exception.