Personalized medicine Related to Gene Therapy, Ethics

Gene therapy, as an experimental therapy, is applied for the treatment of diseases through modification of genes. Gene therapy corrects the mutated genes. Somatic and germline gene therapy are two main types of gene therapy. In germline editing, normal genes are inserted into the human’s eggs or sperm, zygote, or early embryo. Therefore, the gene is transmitted to the next generation, but in somatic gene therapy, a normal gene is inserted into somatic cells and corrects the defective gene without transmission to children. Personalized medicine is a novel therapeutic protocol for the prevention and treatment of diseases that considers individuals’ responding differences to medications.  So, it raises ethical issues. Ethical concerns regarding gene therapy and personalized medicine are as follows: safety, accessibility, cost-efficiency, genetic enhancement, dignity, autonomy, identity, and social discrimination.