DIY Gene Therapy

As I noted in yesterday’s post, Will Trump Appoint a Great FDA Commissioner?, personalized medicine is a challenge to the FDA. Technology Review has an excellent piece on an extreme version of personalized medicine, DIY gene therapy:

Hanley, 60, is the founder of a one-man company called Butterfly Sciences, also in Davis. After encountering little interest from investors for his ideas about using DNA injections to help strengthen AIDS patients, he determined that he should be the first to try it. “I wanted to prove it, I wanted to do it for myself, and I wanted to make progress,” says Hanley.

Most gene therapy involves high-tech, multimillion-dollar experiments carried out by large teams at top medical centers, with an eye to correcting rare illnesses like hemophilia. But Hanley showed that gene therapy can be also carried out on the cheap in the same setting as liposuction or a nose job, and might one day be easily accessed by anyone.

…Hanley opted instead for a simpler method called electroporation. In this procedure, circular rings of DNA, called plasmids, are passed into cells using an electrical current. Once inside, they don’t become a permanent part of person’s chromosomes. Instead, they float inside the nucleus. And if a gene is coded into the plasmid, it will start to manufacture proteins. The effect of plasmids is temporary, lasting weeks to a few months.

Hanley’s method is painful and doesn’t last long but it’s remarkable that it can be done at all.

At least one additional person who underwent self-administered gene therapy is a U.S. biotech executive who did not want his experience publicly known because he is dealing with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on other matters.

Hanley says he did not secure the approval of the FDA before carrying out his experiment either. The agency requires companies to seek an authorization called an investigational new drug application, or IND, before administering any novel drug or gene therapy to people. “They said ‘You need an IND’ and I said, ‘No, I don’t,’” recalls Hanley, who traded e-mails with officials at the federal agency. He argued that self-experiments should be exempt, in part because they don’t pose any risk to the public.

Hat tip: Samir Varma.