Severe combined immunodeficiency

Every year up sixty-two percent of women in the United States use some form of birth control, according to a 2006-2010 study (Jones). In 1950 a lady in her late eighties, named Margaret Sanger, wrote the research for the first human birth control pill, raising up to fifteen thousand dollars for the research for the project. The first oral contraceptive was approved by the FDA ten years later. In 1972, The Supreme Court legalized the use of birth control for couples who are married in the United…

In modern society, different methods of birth control is being introduced. Contraception is more widely accepted in different countries and in different religions making it more easier for individuals to take care of children. However, there are still countries that cannot establish a social environment to make birth control methods such as male condoms and contraceptive pills work. One method of birth control is the use of male condoms. By putting it on the penis, it acts as a barrier because…

In observing the preceding decades following the first use of DNA analysis through technology in 1986, the criminal justice system has manifestly prioritized this specific high-tech DNA evidence in every case following the discovery. Maurice Wilkins once said “DNA is like Mida’s gold, everyone who touches it goes mad,” and in this case it corresponds fittingly. As the material that accompanies the process of DNA technology progressively becomes further “professional” and more frequent, criminal…

Severe Combined Immune Deficiency as described by the immune deficiency foundation, is a “cellular immunodeficiency and a potentially fatal primary immunodeficiency in which there is combined absence of T-lymphocyte and B-lymphocyte function” (Immune Deficiency Foundation IDF, 2016). The lymphatic system comprises of organs and tissue that produce immune cells and one of their main functions is to confer immunity to every part of the body. The function of the T-lymphocyte and B-lymphocyte in the…

You may have heard of the “Boy in the bubble” but have you heard anything about a girl names Madeline Whittier? Everything everything is about a girl with a sickness and falls in love. Madeline (Maddy) was born with a sickness called Severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID). Maddy has had no friends except her mom and nurse (Carla). One day a boy named Olly moved in and everything changed. Maddy started feeling things, became curious the more she talked to him, the more she saw him. One day she…

impossible, it has already been done. With gene therapy, which is a technique where a gene that is either defective or missing is replaced with healthy ones through genetic engineering, doctors are able to treat people with cancer and immunodeficiencies. Immunodeficiencies are, “Rare but life-threatening genetic diseases that severely compromise the integrity and function of the immune system” (Kumar et al. 1-2). Children born with these diseases have such a weak immune system that they usually…

Over many years, scientists have achieved the understanding of the human body. For example, how each system of the human body works, but most importantly, how they fail to work has led to different disease processes and the possible treatments. Although genetic research began long ago, it was not until 1990, when the Human Genome Project was introduced and successfully completed in 2003 (National Human Genome Institute, 2014). This project allowed scientists to understand the “sequences that…

advantageous to individuals but it also has the potential to do more harm than good to an individual. The concept of gene therapy is impeccable and has the capacity to achieve extraordinary results. In the process of somatic gene therapy, individuals with severe diseases are treated by an injection of a vector with the corrected gene for the disease in which they are attempting to fix. Typically, that vector is a deactivated virus; this way, the patient receives the corrected gene in an ideal…

Not only does smoking harm almost every organ in the human body, but it is also the leading preventable cause of death in the United States. Cigarette smoking kills an average of 480,000 Americans each year, making it more deadly than the Human Immunodeficiency Virus, also known as HIV, motor vehicle injuries,…

Let me tell you a story about Evangelina Padilla-Vaccaro. Evangelina was diagnosed after birth with severe combined immunodeficiency; also known as “bubble baby” disease. Most children with this condition die within the first few years of life. Evangelina was cured as a part of a clinical trial run by Dr. Don Kohn and his team at UCLA, working with a UK-based company called Orchard Therapeutics. The treatment she underwent was called OTL-101, which involves taking the patient’s own blood stem…