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The immune system can sabotage gene therapies — can scientists rein it in?

People treated with gene therapy cannot receive a second dose for fear of a dangerous immune response. Researchers hope to find a way around this.
By
  1. Heidi Ledford

When Donavon Decker volunteered for a trial of a gene therapy, it wasn’t for his own benefit. Decker has a genetic muscle disorder, but the trial aimed to assess only the therapy’s safety, not its effectiveness. And the experimental treatment — a virus that would shuttle a healthy gene into his cells — would be injected into a muscle in his foot and was not expected to travel much farther.

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Nature 630, 13-14 (2024)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-024-01483-w

Updates & Corrections

  • Correction 30 May 2024: An earlier version of this story incorrectly quoted Nicholas Giovannone. This has now been corrected.

References

  1. Muhuri, M., Levy, D. I., Schulz, M., McCarty, D. & Gao, G. Mol. Ther. 30, 1364–1380 (2022).

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