Engineers Made Fake DNA To Fix Genetic Disorders
Can you alter DNA to cure blood diseases like thalassemia? Engineers look into peptide nucleic acid molecules to explore the possibilities!
Some rather amazing news out of Pittsburgh this week: Scientists at Carnegie Mellon recently announced a new therapy for inherited blood disorders in which synthetic "patch" molecules are inserted into malfunctioning DNA.
It works like this: peptide nucleic acid molecules, or PNA, are biomolecular structures created in the lab that can essentially mimic DNA. When injected into a living organism, they can repair specific breaks in DNA chains that are mapped to particular blood disorders. It gets a bit more complicated, but that's why we've got Trace Dominguez to break it down in today's DNews report.
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