the much touted gene therapy as a miracle cure for diseases linked to genetic disorders recently suffered a major setback with the discovery that it has caused leukaemia in a child undergoing experimental treatment. The child was being treated at the Paris-based Necker-Enfants Malades clinic for x-severe combined immunodeficiency syndrome, a disease characterised by genetic mutation in bone marrow cells as a result of which these cells are unable to make white blood cells