🚀 go-pugleaf

Mike Reilly wrote:

> Perhaps I'm wrong, but I was under the impression that the work in
> Edmonton was both somatic gene and cell therapy - the beta cells were
> removed from a patient, insulin production was re-instated, the cells
> cultured and then re-introduced.

You're absolutely right.  My mistake was not in mis-remembering what
was done, but in the terminology -- I always forget that introducing
engineered DNA into cells in vitro (which are then put back into the
body) still counts as gene therapy.  So, to restate my point: there
are aspects of aging that might be addressed by in situ gene therapy,
but which cannot easily be addressed by ex vivo gene therapy, because
the number of cells that need to be altered in order to affect the
phenotype is too large and the cells in question are postmitotic (so
their number can't be increased after reimplantation).

Aubrey de Grey