Why aren’t gene therapies more common?

BBC Inside Science

BBC

Science

4.5 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 27 November 2025

⏱️ 27 minutes

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Summary

This week, a world first gene therapy treats rare Hunter syndrome. Could these personalised medicines be used more widely? We speak to Claire Booth, professor in Gene Therapy at Great Ormond Street Hospital.

And high in the Chilean desert, the last bit of 13 billion year old light has hit the mirror of the Atacama Cosmology Telescope for the last time. Dr Jenifer Millard, a science communicator and host of the Awesome Astronomy podcast, tells us what it’s been up to for the past 20 years.

And Penny Sarchet, managing editor at New Scientist brings her pick of the latest new discoveries.

Think you know space? Head to bbc.co.uk, search for BBC Inside Science, and follow the links to the Open University to try The Open University Space Quiz.

Presenter: Tom Whipple Producers: Alex Mansfield, Ella Hubber, Jonathan Blackwell, Tim Dodd and Clare Salisbury Editor: Martin Smith Production Co-ordinator: Jana Bennett-Holesworth

Transcript

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0:00.0	BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts.
0:07.0	Hello, I'm Emma Barnett. For most of my career, I've been on live radio, and I love it.
0:13.3	But I've always wondered, what if we'd had more time? How much deeper does the story go?
0:19.2	I remember having this very sharp thought that what you do right now, this is it.
0:24.3	This defines your life.
0:26.0	I'm ready to talk and ready to listen.
0:28.4	I'm insulted by how little the medical community is ever bothered with this.
0:33.9	Ready to talk with me, Emma Barnard, is my new podcast.
0:37.0	Listen on BBC Sounds.
0:39.2	Hello, I'm Tom Whipple and this is Inside Science from the BBC World Service. This week,
0:45.3	miracle cures, the oldest light in the universe, and our global science correspondent, Roland Pease,
0:50.9	has been finding out why a volcanic ash cloud from Ethiopia has affected
0:54.7	flights as far away as Mumbai. Also joining me to discuss the best new science from the journals
1:00.1	is Penny Sarshe, managing editor at New Scientist. Hi Penny, what have you got for us? I've got the
1:06.1	five ages of the brain and some dog jeans. Fabulous. Well, we've got more genes to begin,
1:13.0	hopefully even more exciting than those in dogs, but we'll find out.
1:16.9	It is, press reports said, like a miracle.
1:20.2	A toddler with a devastating genetic disorder lacked a particular crucial enzyme.
1:25.6	Conventional treatment was failing, the future looked bleak.
1:28.9	Then the parents were offered a new kind of therapy, a gene therapy. Rather than compensating
1:34.6	for the loss of the enzyme, it would fix the disorder itself. They inserted the gene,
1:39.1	and with one treatment the child gained a future. No, it's not the story of Oliver Chu,
	...

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