WGU Heredity and Genetics C653-Task 2

Dear Parent,

How exciting to hear that your daughter is expressing an interest in biotechnology at home. A type of biotechnology that is currently being studied is called gene therapy. In gene therapy, a patient is injected with new genes to treat a preexisting disease, essentially replacing bad DNA with good DNA. Often gene therapy is carried out by a virus whose harmful DNA has been removed and replaced with the good DNA. In this way, as this virus that now contains the good DNA, spreads it replaces the cells that had the bad DNA. Gene therapy is being used to treat a variety of diseases. An example would be Parkinsons. Parkinsons is a disease that affects the central nervous system causing a person to lose the...