Dear Future President,

With the increasingly remarkable advancements in technology, a wide variety of scientific fields including chemistry, biology, and physics have experienced a massive stride forward in research and constant, extensive improvements in research techniques. Similarly, modern access to technology has led to extraordinary progress in medicine, including the advent of telemedicine, or treatment of patients through mass telecommunication, and gene therapy. While it has risen several ethical and safety concerns from the medical community, gene therapy is a newly developed yet promising technique that will, in the long run, bring about more benefits than consequences in the improvement of modern medicine.

Gene therapy is the treatment of dysfunctional or impaired genes using genetic engineering. Often times, people also refer to gene therapy as the correction of genetic defects in the human genome. There are two main types of gene therapy: somatic cell gene therapy and germline gene therapy. Somatic cell gene therapy is the application of gene therapy to normal body cells, which ensures that treatment cannot be passed down to future generations. On the other hand, germline gene therapy has a more permanent impact, altering genes in the gametes, or sex cells, and thus producing a long-lasting effect in offspring.

The main debate over gene therapy frequently revolves around its reliability and moral problems. Typically, germline gene therapy raises the most conversy, due to its questionable consequences in future generations of genetically altered people. Researchers are still unsure of gene therapy’s reliability in correcting genes without creating major mistakes or accidentally altering another gene in the process. However, most people are reluctant to trust gene therapy overall because of ethical issues. For instance, based on an article by Rifkin, a commonly held opinion is that gene therapy “plays God” by manipulating characteristics of humans that had previously been thought to be changed under a higher power.

Despite several concerns regarding the safety of gene therapy, more and more evidence appears daily that supports the improvement of the gene therapy process. According to World of Genetics (2002), the first successful clinical trial of gene therapy occurred in 1990 by the U.S. National Institute of Health to treat SCID, a rare immune disease that often causes severe or fatal infections. This was an incredible leap forward in gene therapy research that spurred a series of increasingly successful trials in the future and also helped secure more safety precautions to prevent future accidents in clinical trials. In fact, according to Jeff Wheelwright, over 350 trials have been completed successfully in the United States and resulted in possible improvements for different health aspects including birth defects in human embryos (such as Down Syndrome), heart disease, and even a longer life expectancy.

With tremendous rate of incoming knowledge surrounding genetics, gene therapy may be the future key to discovering the long-sought-after cure for complex diseases such as cancer and other genetic disorders. In addition, despite the current presence of risks, gene therapy has already made enormous strides, advancing its safety and reducing the amount of danger everyday. However, this opportunity to benefit the common good still remains unknown to many in search of better medicare. Therefore, gene therapy must receive more federal support from both the government and the future President of the United States in order to spark greater awareness about the potential benefits of this promising treatment. With more government funding towards gene therapy research organizations such as the ACGT Foundation, effective and secure treatments can become reality and initiate a worldwide medical revolution towards improved health. 

Sincerely,

Lois B.

Image: http://geneticscertificate.stanford.edu/courses/principles-and-practices-of-gene-therapy