An article published in The New York Times discusses a paper in Nature which recently confirmed the successful manipulation of DNA in bacteria, engineering them to treat a rare inherited disease called phenylketonuria, or PKU. This type of manipulation of DNA has been done for years but only with mice, this was the first successful try with humans. If this new bacteria continues breaking down a metabolism byproduct, an amino acid called phenylalanine, it would signify a huge change for people suffering from PKU. However, they engineered the phenylalanine genes to “shut down” if they sensed high levels of oxygen around them, this may shut the genes permanently for people who also suffer from hyperoxia (excess of oxygen in body tissues).
Alejandra Paredes
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