Here Is Where We Are at with Gene Therapy for Blood Disorders

Gene therapy applications today are as varied as they are complex. From the potential to tackle eye diseases to the hopeful ability to resist radiation on Mars someday, it seems there are unlimited applications for the treatment.

Of course, this makes sense as gene therapy can potentially do everything such as altering our own DNA to eliminate diseases passed on by our ancestors to upgrading our DNA to withstand a multitude of environmental conditions.

In this video, our favorite science explorers from SciShow tackle what gene therapy can do for blood disorders. It turns out that it is quite a lot.

Blood disorders such as hemophilia and sickle cell disease have very few treatment options at the moment, but they happen to be key sectors where gene therapy can become an almost miraculous solution. 

However, the field is still limited despite the potential because modifying genetic code also carries a lot of risks. 

"Lots of genetic diseases come down to a small change in a single gene, but how do you treat those diseases when the cells involved don’t have any DNA?" says the video's description.

In this video, SciShow's Hank Green goes through all the ups and downs of this potential treatment in blood disorders, and we stayed glued to every word. After all, we can not wait for the day where the field reaches its full potential.