20-4
Chapter One
The Evolution of Human
Gene Therapy: A Journey from
Excessive Hype to Excessive
Diffidence to Reality
THEODORE FRIEDMANN
Center for Molecular Genetics, School of Medicine,
University of California at San Diego, La Jolla, California
Unlike Athena, who emerged from the brow of Zeus fully armed and ready
for her godly duties, advances in biomedicine are not born fully formed and
mature. Virtually all of the therapies and preventive methods that we take for
granted-cancer chemotherapy, immunization techniques, tissue transplantation,
management of cardiovascular disease, and treatment of diabetes and many other
metabolic and degenerative diseases-have required decades of development
and incremental advance from initial concept and early proof of concept to truly
effective and widely applicable clinical application. They are all still imperfect but
are evolving rapidly, and their practitioners are learning from false starts, detours,
reversals, and missteps. In most cases, scientists, the public, policymakers, and
the media understand and accept what is often a discouragingly slow pace of
advance in a difficult new ... read full excerpt from Concepts in Genetic Medicine ebook
