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Health Check: Family’s gene therapy journey

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Family’s gene therapy journey

2023/01/11 GMT

BBC World Service - Health Check, Family’s gene therapy journey

One family’s quest for their little girl to be treated for an incredibly rare disease

Family’s gene therapy journey; ‘Covid-blocking’ sea sponge; China latest; scars treated with hair.

In this week’s episode of Health Check, we meet the Poulin family who live in Thailand. They tell us about their long quest to have their little girl Rylae-Ann diagnosed with an incredibly rare disease. And that’s just the beginning of the story.

Rylae-Ann was fortunate enough to have gene therapy on a clinical trial in Taiwan – and it has transformed her life – but it’s not a treatment that’s available to everyone. 

Joining presenter Smitha Mundasad in the studio is family doctor Graham Easton, who’ll discuss why that’s the case – and what the risks are around this experimental treatment and the ethics of diagnosing rare conditions.

We’ll also hear from a scientist in Vancouver on her fascinating research which has discovered a compound in a sea sponge that blocks Covid-19 in human cells in the lab.

And we’ll have the latest on the virus in China, as concerns grow about its spread ahead of the Lunar New Year, and a rather unusual study about a very small trial in London involving scars being treated using transplanted hair.

Presenter: Smitha Mundasad
Producer: Gerry Holt and Tess Davidson

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