Josh P. Roberts

About the author: Josh P. Roberts is a freelance writer in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Although advancements in gene therapy have not been as dramatic as the first clinical trial over a decade ago, in which four-year-old Ashanti DeSilva's deadly immunodeficiency was successfully treated in part by genetic intervention, research in the field is making progress. The death of eighteen-year-old gene therapy patient Jesse Gelsinger in 1999, and other setbacks in its short history, placed gene therapy research under increased scrutiny and stricter regulations. But such events overshadow the incremental advances gene therapy researchers are making today. In fact, a wide variety of trials are currently under way, including gene therapy experiments aimed at treating cardiovascular disease, HIV, and cancer, that are developing more efficient techniques of genetic intervention.

In 1990, three men—W...