First gene-editing therapy may cure blood disorder

People with beta thalassaemia struggle to produce enough haemoglobin, which is the protein in red blood cells that carries oxygen around the body.

It is a genetic disease that is passed down through families and caused by defects in the body's instructions for manufacturing haemoglobin.

It can leave people severely tired, weak, and short of breath and also cuts life expectancy.

Kirthana Balachandran, 21, was diagnosed when she was only three months old and gets muscle pain and back pain and can have palpitations when walking uphill.

“The idea of depending on transfusions for quite literally the rest of my life is daunting, I constantly worry about the future,” she says.

The idea of gene-editing is you only need to do it once.