US scientists have developed a way to turn on and off therapeutic genes, which will make gene therapies safer and more effective, the team announced. Researchers at the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center said they can control therapeutic genes, which sometimes generate toxic side effects from over-activity, and can produce adverse immune-system reactions to the viruses used to deliver the genes, they said in a statement."We’ve engineered a genetic switch in a novel gene transfer vector that will overcome those barriers,” said Pedro Lowenstein, co-director of the Cedars-Sinai Gene Therapeutic Institute in Los Angeles.Gene therapy, which involves transferring therapeutic genes into a patient where they can be accepted as part of the body’s own genetic machinery, is believed to hold out strong prospects for treating neuro-degenerative diseases like Parkinson’s.The new method is useful, the scientists said, because not all diseases treated with gene therapy require the genes to be active constantly.Some diseases go into remission and only require gene therapy in their active stages.Their study was published in the January 2006 issue of the Journal of Virology.
