Gene Therapy Mix May Have Caused Leukemia
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From Times Staff and Wire Reports
Two children who developed leukemia after receiving gene therapy may have been victims of a rare combination of genes, a team from the National Cancer Institute reported in the Jan. 16 issue of Science.
Dr. Utpal P. Dave and his colleagues discovered that IL2RG, the gene used to treat the children, could combine with another gene called Lmo2 to cause leukemia in mice. The children were being treated for an inherited disease.
The team said that combination of genes would not be present in other gene therapy experiments.
