INTERVIEW
Nearly 70 of the usual events had to be canceled because of the epidemic, and yet the French seem to be there at 36 37, the number that must be reached to give the Telethon. More than 16 million euros in donations have already been recorded on Saturday noon. But nothing is settled, recalls Marina Philippe, vice-president of the AFM Telethon, who points out that last year’s fundraising had raised 87 million euros. She calls everyone to solidarity, because this “genetic innovation” enabled by research is useful to all.
Speed up research
“To understand the disease, isolate it, locate the gene, understand what this gene is used for in the human body; then target therapies, create them, manufacture them in a just incredible innovation … It takes time and it costs very, very expensive, “says Marina Philippe, who had to wait for 32 Telethon for her daughter to receive treatment.
It takes time and money to develop new therapies. But “from the moment we created the first tools, well everything goes much faster. Today, there is gene therapy, that is to say, going to put the missing gene in all the cells of the body of the sick child, which will allow him to have a life expectancy “, continues the vice-president of AFM Téléthon, giving the example of children suffering from spinal muscular atrophy whose life expectancy is not exceed 2 years, and who thanks to gene therapy have seen it lengthen. However, once this research on genetics is launched, it can lead to other uses.
A “genetic understanding” that will be useful to all
“The vaccine against Covid-19 is a vaccine that is the result of therapeutic innovations. Since the AFM Telethon has existed, thanks to the generosity of the French, thanks to all our volunteers for 33 years, we have been able to develop and have an understanding of genetics which allows us to have therapeutic approaches today completely different from vaccines. classics we could have. Pfizer’s vaccine, like others, are vaccines that are targeted to messenger RNA. We are really in pure genetics! “, Explains Marina Philippe.
According to her, “all this genetic understanding is not going to be used only for us, for our children with genetic diseases, but for a lot of rare diseases, for a lot of frequent diseases, that’s for sure.” “We are all concerned by this therapeutic innovation,” concludes the vice-president of the Telethon.
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