first clinical gene therapy was done for the treatment of
Gene therapy The first attempt, an unsuccessful one, at gene therapy (as well as the first case of medical transfer of foreign genes into humans not counting organ transplantation) was performed by Martin Cline on 10 July 1980.[6][7] Cline claimed that one of the genes in his patients was active six months later, though he never published this data or had it verified[8] and even if he is correct, it's unlikely it produced any significant beneficial effects treating beta-thalassemia.
Taq polymerase In the early 1980s, Kary Mullis was working at Cetus Corporation on the application of synthetic DNAs to biotechnology. He was familiar with the use of DNA oligonucleotides as probes for binding to target DNA strands, as well as their use as primers for DNA sequencing and cDNA synthesis. In 1983, he began using two primers, one to hybridize to each strand of a target DNA, and adding DNA polymerase to the reaction. This led to exponential DNA replication,[7] greatly amplifying the amounts of DNA between the primers.[3]