I asked my husband for blogging suggestions and usually he's full of weird/semi-interesting/not very interesting ideas like the migratory habits of blue jays or the Kansas City Royals winning the World Series (that's been his team since he was 10 years old, so he was very happy about it) but today when I asked he said, "Why don't you blog about how warm it has been?" (unseasonably warm and I'm loving it, in case you are wondering).
"What? That's all you've got?" I said. "You think I should blog about the weather?" *Yawn*
Then he came back with this: "Did you hear about the kid who almost died from cancer and they saved her life with genome engineering?"
Okay. That's what I'm talking about. That is the kind of thing I would expect my husband to suggest I blog about.
So, the short version: A little one year old girl in England has had leukemia for pretty much her whole life. A few months ago doctors told her parents she was going to die. They had tried just about everything they could and she was not getting better. The parents pleaded for the doctors to try anything that might help their daughter. So, the doctors decided to try an experimental treatment. They injected the little girl, Layla, with "designer immune cells" which use nucleases to "edit genes and make immune cells especially capable of hunting out and destroying cancer" (Sarah Kaplan for The Washington Post) and it worked. Her cancer is gone.
I get goosebumps just writing that. It is a real modern day miracle. The treatment needs lots more testing before it could become widely used, but it is, in my husband's words "pretty damn cool."
Thankful list for today:
-SCIENCE!
-Doctors
-Parents who love their kids
-Good news in a world where the news is so often bad
-Miracles
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