Gene Therapy Use for Treating Cancer and Mesothelioma

What are genes and genetic disorders?

Genes are the basic unit of DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid). Genes are the functional unit of heredity, which is passed by our parents to us. Every one of us has around 30,000 to 40,000 genes which are responsible to find out different things like the colour of our eyes or hair and also the ability of clotting of our blood (hemophilic). A unique protein is being created by genes, which is used for cellular function; this is the actually the appearance of genes which has its effects. If the genes have some defects it could not create protein and when this happens the trouble arises.

Every one of us got some defective genes from our parents; some of the genes that we received have two copies; one from our father and the other one from our mother and most of the time these defective genes has no affect on us. But if we received the same defective genes from both parents the genetic disorders might get itself revealed.

There are many disorders in our body that is not hereditary, but it has some connections regarding our genes.  The reason for these complicated disorders is environmental issues and multiple gene mutations. These disorders involved diseases like diabetes, Cancer and heart disease. These kinds of disorders has more affect on people rather than monogenic disorders(a genetic disease that is controlled by one pair of genes – like Thalassaemia, Haemophilia). These complicated disorders make it very challenging to treat them.                                                  

Gene Therapy

This is the most wonderful breakthrough in field of Health that is you can alter defective genes by replacing or removing the abnormal genes or even introducing new normal genes to prevent or treat yourself with the disease. Researchers are correcting the defective genes by adding normal genes to the genome and also replacing the defective ones.

To carry out these procedures the researchers must know the actual location of these specific genes and should be aware when, how and why these genes do these functions so that they can find a new way bring the new information to genome. Bringing the genes to their desired location is done by a carrier molecule called vector. Viruses are the most common vectors which have the capability to deliver foreign geneses to the cells. Because of the alteration of these viral vectors they will not cause illness. There is another type of vector that is called non-viral vectors.

Some commonly used vectors in gene therapy are:

Viral Vectors

• Herpes simplex viruses
• Adeno virus
• Adeno-associated viral

Non- Viral Vectors

• Naked DNA
• Liposome

Now come to the topic which is can we treat Cancer and Mesothelioma with it?

The primary objective of gene therapy is to eliminate the root cause of the disease. Basically the genes carry the instructions about making the proteins and other building blocks necessary for cell to function. If the instructions of genes are missing or it is incorrect a person may be lacking a healthy cell. The researchers don’t deal with the effects of defective genes instead they try to deliver the proper instructions to your cell by avoiding negative effects.

Obviously the primary goal of gene therapy is to deal with genetic disorders. In earlier time it was thought that the genes are fixed it could not be altered or changed throughout our life. Our DNA can be damaged by smoking, chemicals or sun and results in to mutations that cause defective hereditary behavior. A person initially which can’t be seen for gene therapy certainly is a target like a Mesothelioma patient.

Mesothelioma is complicated disorder. This disorder is a result of mutation of genes due to environmental cause like exposure of Asbestos and can also be inherited genetic mutations. For developing Mesothelioma smoking of cigarettes further reveal the complex nature of complicated disorders. The great thing of gene therapy not only Mesothelioma other cancers can also be treated along with diseases like diabetes and diseases related to heart.  

To prevent cancer this is a tremendous breakthrough as it can save lives and give hope to us to live a better and a healthy life!