Abstract
The paper looks at how Avila, Berasain, Sangro and Pietro (2006) state that gene therapy is the transfer of nucleic acid sequences to tissues to enhance the synthesis of a therapeutic protein or to block expression of a gene. The paper explains that gene therapy includes any treatment that is based in the use of genetic material to modify cells and it uses oncolytic virotherapy which involves genetic engineering of viruses to kill cancer cells. The paper also explains that gene transfer consists of introducing a foreign gene into a cancerous cell or the surrounding tissue, using viral vectors that cannot replicate for delivery. The paper notes that while gene therapy is very promising, it also contains formidable challenges.

From the Paper
"Avila, Berasain, Sangro and Pietro (2006) state that gene therapy is the transfer of nucleic acid sequences to tissues to enhance the synthesis of a therapeutic protein or to block expression of a gene. Gene therapy includes any treatment that is based in the use of genetic material to modify cells. Gene therapy uses oncolytic virotherapy which involves genetic engineering of viruses to kill cancer cells; gene transfer immunotherapy or vaccines is another form of gene therapy (Kalyn, 2007)."

Tags:gene, therapy, cancer

Abstract
In this article, the writer discusses gene therapy, its dangers, and two notable cases in which people died during clinical trials. The writer examines the ethical, legal, economic, and societal concerns associated with the practice.

From the Paper
"Gene therapy is a controversial modality that is heralded by some as the answer to serious gene-related disease and rejected by others as dangerous and inappropriate. Theoretically gene therapy should work and on paper it does. The ex-vivo method involves removing the defective blood cells from the patient and mixing it with genetically engineered cells in which the part of a virus that causes disease is replaced with normal genetic material that is then injected into the patient. The normal cells then regenerate in ..."

Tags:gene therapy, death, danger, Gelsinger, Mohr, retroviral vector

Abstract
In this article, the writer discusses the use of gene therapy to cure the inherited disorder of sickle cell disease. The writer focuses on the biochemistry of this treatment process. Further, the writer gives a review of sickle cell disease.

From the Paper
"Knowledge of a disease heralded by painful episodes of substantial intensity which in many instances leads to early death has existed in Africa for over a century. Stuart and Nagel pointed out that James Herrick a physician who was also a Chaucer scholar first identified sickle cells in a medical student from Grenada. In the first half of the twentieth century Linus Pauling showed the abnormal electrophoretic mobility of hemoglobin in an affected individual. Vernon Ingram discovered that the defect of ..."

Tags:sickle cell disease, gene therapy, biochemistry, Pauling

Abstract
As gene therapy has moved from the laboratory into the clinic, several issues have emerged as central to the development of this technology: gene identification, gene expression and gene delivery. The author of this paper points out that gene therapy is a method for the treatment or prevention of disease that utilizes genes to provide the patient's cells with the genetic information necessary to produce specific therapeutic proteins needed to correct or combat disease. The paper also introduces genomics research, which seeks to map the human genome, or total DNA content of the human cell.

Table of Contents
Introduction
Background and Direction
Potential
Other Gene Therapy Directions

From the Paper
"Genes are segments of deoxyribonucleic acid ("DNA") present in each cell in the body, which provide the information cells use to produce protein. Protein production begins in the nucleus of the cell when the gene is copied or "transcribed", resulting in the creation of a form of ribonucleic acid ("RNA") known as "messenger RNA." Specific DNA sequences called "promoters" control the extent of copying (transcription) of genes. Messenger RNA then moves from the nucleus of the cell into the cell's cytoplasm, where it is "translated" by the cell into protein. The process of transcription and translation that results in protein production by the cell is called "gene expression". The absence or defective structure of specific genes may change the composition or pattern of proteins expressed by the cell, causing certain inherited diseases such as cystic fibrosis and muscular dystrophy as well as acquired diseases such as cancer."

Tags:clinical, identification, delivery, therapy, genome

Abstract
The writer defines what gene therapy is - whereby cells are provided with new genetic material. It lists its advantages in the medical field especially in the treatment of cancer. The paper discusses the two main forms of gene therapy - in vivo and in vitro and looks at how the therapy is performed.

From the Paper
"One of the most important applications for gene therapy is as a potential cure for cancer. Cancer is a disease that occurs at the genetic level, with damaged genes being the cause of cancer. With genes being the cause of cancer, gene therapy is the most direct treatment approach. It gets to the base of the problem. Gene therapy is the process of providing cells with new genetic material. Cells can be provided with healthy copies of genes or the part of the gene that is damaged, or cancer cells can be delivered new genetic material that will allow them to be destroyed. There are two forms of gene therapy, in vitro and in vivo. The most common form is in vitro, which is where the targets cells are removed from the patient and then reinfused (Lewis, Heitkemper & Dirksen, 2000)."

Tags:cancer, cell, treatment, gene, dna, virus

Abstract
A study of gene therapy, which is the new area for expansion in medicine that holds a lot of potential while having its basic problems associated with all innovative technologies. The paper explains that the technology is still under development and subjected to considerable review but the products of gene therapy are highly in demand as medicine alone cannot hope to cure all diseases especially those related closely to genetic disorders. The ethics and the problems, technical and economical have been considered.

From the Paper
"The currently post-modern amalgamation of nations previously isolated, but now unified by the veins of modern express transport, entails a global society of different individual cultural strengths pooled together to create a single entity for the purposes of exploiting the maximum potential of human achievement. However, this event that has fortified the world's population with regard to economy and technology has unfortunately exposed mankind's greatest weakness, while it being, simultaneously, its greatest strength: the homogeneity of human biology. This allowed diseases, once secluded and endemic to certain geographical zones alone, to spread giving rise to pandemics. Therapeutic solutions in medicine has also exploited this homogeneity to create and mass-produce cures for the entire population, non-selectively."

Tags:ethics, innovation, medicine, problems, regulation, science, techniques, therapy

Abstract
This paper examines methods of treating cancer using gene therapy techniques. The writer describes cancer and the methods of cancer treatment most commonly used, and explains that gene therapy is so new, and evidence of its effectiveness so scarce, that it is not a common treatment. However, researchers are enthusiastic about its possibilities. The writer discusses the P53 gene, which has been identified as an important tumor suppressor gene on which to focus gene therapy, and the current challenge presented by the necessity of delivering genes to an exact location in the patient's DNA. The ethical issues arising from the use of gene therapy are also discussed.

Outline:
Introduction
Background
Cancer and gene therapy
Recommendations
Conclusion

From the Paper
"There are also bioethical issues that are associated with gene therapy, which this current investigation must also consider. In terms of science and medical technology, there are good sides and bad sides to progress, and the overall theme in most of the exhaustively recovered secondary texts examined by the current report, if there is one, is that science can only really be good for society when it is practiced responsibly and with a foundation of bioethics. People still try to guess about the future of science, technology and society and how they will interact, just as authors have guessed about this fascinating subject for many years in the past. But realistically, the cure for cancer may not yet be found."

Tags:surgery radiation chemotherapy experimental controversy eugenics support, genetic screening, virus

Abstract
This paper discusses the social issues regarding gene therapy. The author offers an argument advocating gene therapy. It describes what gene therapy is and its use. The paper also explores the controversy surrounding gene therapy and attempts to explain why the benefits outweigh the risks.

From the Paper
"The use of gene therapy for remedial purposes and otherwise has been a controversial topic for quite some time. It was developed in 1980, and since then, the technology has increased, and we have seen many major advances in this field. Gene therapy could prove to be very useful in curing fatal diseases and conditions, but we, as ethical human beings, must be very careful in the development of such techniques as it can be used for unnecessary and unethical purposes, such as the enhancement of human traits."

Tags:human, traits, argument, society

Abstract
This paper summarizes Thomas Lee's description of the four different types of gene therapy as a springboard to discussing some of the ethics and social implications of the different gene therapy techniques. The different types of therapies discussed in this paper are somatic therapy, germ line therapy, enhancement therapy and eugenics.

From the Paper
"Using genes to treat and correct illness is a very exciting and potentially perilous new application of genetics. It would not be surprising in the next five years to see Medical Genetics Departments in every hospital. In Gene Futures, Thomas Lee outlines the four categories of therapy that are possible."

Tags:desirable, traits, selective, breeding, enhancing, superior, technology, oncogenes

From the Paper
"The concept of "gene therapy" has gained significance over the past few decades and is based on the assumption that genetic disease can be treated through directing treatment to the actual mutant gene rather than to the external effects of mutation. The goal of human gene therapy is to replace, correct, or augment the content of mutant genes in defective cells by introducing normal genetic sequences . Considerations and impacts of significance that accrue from the progress of the revolutionary and controversial science of human gene therapy will be discussed. Emphasis will be on the ramifications for medical and public policy, for the rights and feelings of the genetically handicapped, and for the predicted direction of eugenics aside from that of genetic diseases. "