Thread: Genetic Correction

I went to a doctor today who diagonosed that 80% of the problems i have are inherited from my father and it will be inherited to my son too.
no matter what the imperfections/diseases we carry is there anyway to genetically correct the DNA or whatever that contains it?

Im not a biologist but until someone more knowledgeable comments, you can look into gene therapy. There's not much available right now but It looks promising for the future. Since its in very early stages there are some potential cures for diseases that were selected for research/testing are being developed/tested in various parts of the world (where science is being funded and developed).

No way today to "correct" a gene or genes. They are in the process of finding which genes do what first of all then they will attempt to "fix" the bad genes if at all possible, That is going to be at least 25 years away , perhaps sooner depending on funding of the project.

Who is that directed to?

Just a general comment on the idea of "genetic correction". It's from one of my favorite movies.

Which movie was that?

Gattaca

Everyone should see it. It blew my mind in 1997.

I'd very much like therapy of some sort to be available for genetic disorders. One of my daughters has inherited the neurological condition I inherited from my father.

However, I suspect that there are only a few genetic conditions that are lined up for correction for the time being. No one really knows how to do it yet and they'll be concentrating on those with the worst consequences for sufferers. There are very serious versions of what I have, but even those aren't directly life threatening - though the worst of them can result in some people being quite severely disabled for the whole of their lives rather than merely gradually degenerating as they get older. I'd think things like cystic fibrosis would be a much higher priority for research.

on those with the worst consequences for sufferers.

I imagine many research teams might do that but not all. Ive seen a report about genetic treatment in France for a very rare disease that was very promising and was successful at changing mice, where mice with the genetic defect had short boxer dog like jaw/nose and the treatment caused the jaw/nose to slowly resume the typical shape(I cant remember if the baby mice had the treatment of if adult mice change as well even if they had grown that way, I dont remember that important detail). I had the impression that the genetic researchers selected this disease not because of its value/worst consequences or for best consequences in curing as many humans as possible but because that disease was one which was easier for that specific team of researchers to achieve positive results (given their expertise, the nature of that disease, data about patients, mice models, the techniques, etc) to test/experiment on. Presumably their potential success and knowledge derived from developing their techniques could later help other teams of researchers attempting to cure more widespread or devastating diseases (sometimes you need to learn to walk before you can learn how to run).