|
|
Article: Gene therapy holds promise for treating liver failure, cirrhosis without need for transplants, studies find.(Brief Article)
- Article from:
- Transplant News
- Article date:
- March 13, 2000
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2000 Transplant Communications, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
|
Two different types of gene therapy, one involving transplantation of reversibly immortalized hepatocytes and the other enhancement of telomere function, hold promise for treating liver failure and cirrhosis without the need for transplantation.
In one of the two studies reported in the February 18 issue of Science, Naoya Kobayashi, MD of Okayama University Medical School in Japan and colleagues isolated human hepatocytes in vitro and transfected them with an oncogene that immortalized the cells and caused them to double every 48 hours. To make it possible to halt the proliferative mechanism, the hepatocytes were concurrently transfected with a gene that, when ...