"AT LAST gene therapy may be living up to its promise. Dramatic and sustained improvements have been reported in the first people to get gene therapy for Parkinson's disease. In all 12 patients, symptoms improved by at least 25 per cent for up to a year after the treatment, as measured by standard tests of Parkinson's severity ("
""We're very encouraged by these results," says Matthew During of Cornell University in New York, who led the study. His team burned tiny holes in the skulls of the patients so they could inject a harmless virus carrying a gene into a part of the brain called the subthalamic nucleus. In patients with Parkinson's, this region becomes overactive, damaging neurons elsewhere in the brain that make the neurotransmitter dopamine, which is vital for controlling movement."