Ours is a real Minnesota fish story, that
started with the resurrection of a gene in
salmon fish that went extinct 13 million years
ago.
I'm Perry Hackett, I'm a professor in genetic
cell biology and development and the Center
for Genome Engineering.
We developed the Sleeping Beauty Transposon
System from transposons that exist in fish
today but are no longer active.
We thought that we could help people with
hemophilia and diseases like that by giving
them a good gene to replace the bad gene.
Today, the Sleeping Beauty Transposon System
in human gene therapy is used to treat patients
with lymphoma.
It's done by reprogramming their immune system
to go out, find the cancer cells and kill
them.
This T cell or adoptive immunotherapy... boy
does it work.
The latest results are showing up to 80% clinical
remission or absence of disease as a result
of the therapy, in people who really were
very very close to death before the therapy
started.
Developments that have high impact are due
to a huge infrastructure and members of the
lab.
Their pictures are all around.
I so much appreciate the faith and loyalty
that everybody has shown, who has worked with
me over the past 37 years.
Here in Minnesota, we spend nearly 500 million
dollars a year supporting the national institutes
of health, and the basic research that we
did on fish turns out to have immense value
in treating cancer.
