Continuing my occasional forays into gene technology, I was interested to see that regulatory authorities in China have licensed a gene therapy based treatment. This is the first time anywhere in the world that such a treatment has been authorized.

Although the therapy relates to head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (a huge problem in southern China) the technology is relatively straightforward. The company, SiBiono GeneTech, uses an adenovirus as the vector to insert a gene designed to limit cancer cell …