Layla, a one year old girl lay dying in Great Ormond Street Hospital. She was suffering from acute lymphoblastic leukaemia. She had received all the conventional treatments with no success, but her parents would not give up hope of their child being cured. As a last resort doctors experimented by treating her with a therapy called gene editing. This is a highly complicated business. Her treatment involved removing imperfect immune cells and replacing them with genetically engineered cells from a donor to destroy her cancerous cells. After they were destroyed it was necessary to remove the modified immune cells and replace them with healthy ones. This was achieved by giving the girl a bone marrow transplant.
To all accounts, she appears to be cured, but only time will tell.
Here we see the intervention of medical specialists bringing about for the patient and her parents a ‘miraculous’ cure. The true definition of a miracle is an extraordinary, welcome event attributed to a divine agency that is not explicable by natural or scientific laws. In other words, it is an event that cannot be attributed to the natural order of things.
Now, when we read the Bible, and hear of Jesus curing the sick, restoring sight, speech and hearing; healing the lame and bringing people back to life, we must surely ask the question, “Can this be true?” and, “Could this really have been the Son of God whom he claimed to be?” It is my belief that our very future, depends upon our answers.
If we believe Him, we can entirely trust Him to bring us to Himself after we depart from this world, and to trust Him for all that happens in our lives.
Do we want Jesus to intervene with His genetic scissors to bring about a miracle that imparts everlasting life? If so, why not ask Him right now?
Links
Gene editing saves girl dying from leukaemia in world first
Gene therapy cures leukaemia in eight days
Genome Editing: How to Modify Genetic Faults - and the Human Germline
Editing our DNA with Molecular Scissors
Genome Editing (A technical paper)
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