I work in gene therapy; expect a lot of headlines like this in the coming years. We're just getting started with solving the easy-to-fix problems and disorders right now, but they're falling quickly.<p>Soon it'll be possible to seriously talk about improving working functionality via gene therapy-- I'd expect simple musculoskeletal augmentation first.
Does the strengthening of neural connections only work with people with that specific gene? Could this be extended to other cortical visual disorders, such as amblyopia?
Excuse my naive questions, but this left me very curious.<p>1) Have we reached a phase where the difficult part is finding the genes responsible for X? With the delivery being now boilerplate code (CRISPR?).<p>2) What exactly are the limitations of gene therapy?<p>3) How does aging fit into the picture? For example, if grey hairs are the result of cell aging/damaging, will we be able to reverse/restore it?
This is a very exciting development. I had been reading recently that gene therapy had been nearly completely written off as unworkable (in regards to cystic fibrosis).