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In today's episode, Dr. Ki Goosens of the McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT tells Adam about the use of gene therapy to treat lifelong or debilitating conditions. Though typically considered for the treatment of cancerous cells, researchers are now proposing the use of gene therapy for debilitating brain-related disorders, such as severe post-traumatic stress disorder and schizophrenia. As with traditional gene therapy, these new applications proposed for the brain follow the same fundamental premise: scientists use an engineered virus — one that encloses a segment of DNA containing a beneficial gene — to infect cells with genes that have the potential to change an unhealthy cell into a healthy one. Join Adam as he learns about the process of and potential for gene therapy to cure conditions with a neurochemical basis. [03:30]
