The 16-Year-Old Girl Who Defeated an «Incurable» Leukemia Through a Breakthrough Gene Therapy

At the core of this breakthrough was a cutting-edge technique known as base editing. This technology allows scientists to precisely alter individual letters of DNA without cutting the genetic strand entirely. By changing specific DNA bases, researchers were able to switch off genes that would normally cause donor T cells to attack the patient’s body, while activating genes that enabled them to target leukemia cells. Even a single DNA change could dramatically alter how a cell behaves.