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US Doctors Plan To Treat Cancer Patients Using CRISPR (technologyreview.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report: The first human test in the U.S. involving the gene-editing tool CRISPR could begin at any time and will employ the DNA cutting technique in a bid to battle deadly cancers. Doctors at the University of Pennsylvania say they will use CRISPR to modify human immune cells so that they become expert cancer killers, according to plans posted this week to a directory of ongoing clinical trials. The study will enroll up to 18 patients fighting three different types of cancer -- multiple myeloma, sarcoma, and melanoma -- in what could become the first medical use of CRISPR outside China, where similar studies have been under way. An advisory group to the National Institutes of Health initially gave a green light to the Penn researchers in June 2016, but until now it was not known whether the trial would proceed.
XKCD
You mean China is ahead of us in medical research?
I guess that's par for the course since we live in a country controlled by anti-science Bible thumping morons.
Yeah, I'm sure it has nothing to do with researchers in China not having any inconvenient laws and regulations against doing medical testing on prisoners, criminals, requiring years of testing before human trials would be allowed, etc etc.
It's nice though that you got to air your religious bigotry in the public square, and so brave doing it as AC, too.
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
Could this also lead to autoimmune diseases, since the immune system is being enhanced to more effectively target the body's own cells. While it's true that the immune system does target cancer cells, this seems like something that could lead to side effects.
I would hazard a guess that these folks are almost certainly going to die from the cancer anyway... Sometimes, you take any risk you can.