Is gene therapy ready to take flight?

Telocyte founder Michael Fossel compares gene therapy field to aviation five years after the Wright brothers’ first flight.

Next week, leaders from across the field of gene therapy research and development will gather in Boston for the?Advancing Gene Therapy 2022?conference. The event, chaired by Telocyte founder?Dr Michael Fossel, aims to provide insight into the various strategies and programmes for the developments of safe and beneficial gene therapeutics.

My take on this: The longevity field is abuzz about the prospect for reversing cellular aging, and various gene therapy approaches are aiming to do just that. The widespread adoption of gene therapy has been slow due to?initial setbacks, but the approach is now starting to see some successes in the treatment of diseases ranging from cancer to blindness. We caught up with Fossel to get some perspective on where gene therapy stands today.

While gene therapy may seem like a new development in modern medicine, Fossel points out that the approach was already being hailed as a game-changer?as early as the 1980s.

“Then, about 20 years ago, we had the?death of Jesse Gelsinger?and other complications, and things got pushed back for a while,” he says. “Today, things are starting to move ahead again, but gene therapy is clearly undergoing an enormous amount of change, on a week-to-week, month-to-month basis.”

Read the full interview HERE.

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