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Gene therapy opens new frontier in fight against Huntington's
(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-07-16 16:52

Gene therapy is one of the most exciting areas of medical research, as it offers the tantalising prospect of being able to slow, stop or even reverse a disease by correcting a flawed gene.

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However, enthusiasm has also been dampened by several bad setbacks when experiments that did well on lab animals backfired when tested on humans.

Clinical trials are long because they are hedged with conditions and periodic reviews to ensure the prototype treatment is safe.

Meanwhile, in the latest issue of the Journal of Experimental Medicine, British researchers said they had found that an inflammation-causing protein called IL-6 could serve as an early warning sign of Huntington's.

People with high levels of this protein went on to develop symptoms of the disease more than a decade later.

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