Photo by Wonderlane on Unsplash
On a nearly still and moonlit night last week, some 75 people formed a circle on Asilomar State Beach around a sand pit ringed by seaweed. Four dancers swayed around the pit to the sound...
Aggregated News
Photo: CIRM
Twenty children seeking treatment for a rare affliction called the “bubble baby disease” today have some big-time, good news concerning a life-saving genetic therapy that they were once denied as the result of a tangled affair involving private profit and the public funding of cutting-edge scientific research.
After being halted nearly two years ago, a California state-financed clinical trial that can help the children is now solidly on its way to a new beginning at UCLA. Treatments of the children could begin as early as June.
The California stem cell agency is expected to provide $5.8 million to resume the trial at UCLA. Millions more are likely to be forthcoming from the agency, officially known as the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM).
Despite the success of the trial over the last several years -- “100 percent overall survival” of 50 patients -- it was abandoned in 2020 by Orchard Therapeutics, PLC. Instead, Orchard turned towards research that it deemed would be more profitable. At that time, Orchard had exclusive rights to the therapy, which was...