Gene Therapy Death Prompts Review of Adenovirus Vector

For the past 3 months, one-third of the 250 faculty and staff members connected with the University of Pennsylvania's Institute for Human Gene Therapy have been studying a single case. They've been trying to understand why Jesse Gelsinger, a relatively fit 18-year-old with an inherited enzyme deficiency, died on 17 September, 4 days after doctors at Penn injected a genetically altered virus into his liver.