Gene therapy, science fiction or science fact?

ABSTRACT

The term gene therapy is commonly understood to be the use of DNA as a pharmaceutical agent to treat diseases. This may be done by replacing defective or absent genes or to counteract those that are overexpressed. This would have been a science fiction story only a few years ago. Currently, gene therapy has attracted considerable attention and has become a hot topic for investigation. Gene therapy aims to repair the cause of the problem and not merely suppress symptoms, provides long-term cure, and does not require repeated applications or clinic visits