• Question: Is there any cures for any syndromes?

    Asked by 762cesf46 to Kylie, Matt, Bex, RobB, Sam on 15 Jun 2016.
    • Photo: Sam Briggs

      Sam Briggs answered on 15 Jun 2016:


      Hi Buttery Udders,

      Fantastic username and question. I know very little about this so this will be mostly guesswork built on hearsay.

      As far as I’m aware a syndrome is a genetic defect that a patient has from birth. I don’t think there are any available technologies that can treat this, although there has been a lot in the news recently about CRISPR CAS9 tech, which lets you edit gene sequences in the subject. This was pretty groundbreaking and we think it will probably win the Nobel Prze this year!

      Hope that helps?

    • Photo: Kylie Belchamber

      Kylie Belchamber answered on 15 Jun 2016:


      Hey buttery udders!
      A syndrome is a group of symptoms that come together to form a disease. This can either be genetic, or can just occur.
      An example of a non-genetic syndrome is Cushings syndrome, where your face gets round, an d you get muscle weakness. It is caused by a tumour, or by overuse of steroid drugs. So for this, we can take the tumour out, or stop using steroids and it should be cured.
      If a syndrome is genetic, then we so far can’t sure it. For example, Downs syndrome is caused by having an extra chromsome. We can’t treat this at the moment.

      I hope that helps!

    • Photo: Matt Dunn

      Matt Dunn answered on 16 Jun 2016:


      There are many different types of syndromes (the most infamous being Down’s Syndrome), and most of these are genetic diseases that can be inherited from parent to child.

      This means that genetic engineering and modifications are the best solution if you need a cure for a syndrome, stem cell therapy is also promising, but it is early days yet and most of the diseases are still unknown.

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