World News for Students of English

01-12-2025 07:00

Three-year-old Oliver Chu is the first person in the world to receive a new gene therapy for an inherited disease called Hunter syndrome.

This disease causes damage to the body and brain, and patients with the worst cases usually don’t live past their teenage years.

A bad gene stops the body from making an important enzyme. Scientists in Manchester, UK, took Oliver’s stem cells and used a virus to put a correct copy of the gene into them. These cells started making the missing enzyme in Oliver’s body, and stopped further damage to his brain and body.

A year later, Oliver’s doctors and family are excited about his progress. He is growing normally, he can speak normally, and he learns new things. His parents hope his older brother, Skylar, who also has Hunter syndrome, will be able to get the same therapy soon.

Difficult words: gene therapy (putting a good gene into a patient’s cells to treat a disease), inherited (received from a parent or another person in the family through genes), stem cell (a special kind of cell in the body that has the power to develop into many different types of cells), progress (how well someone or something is doing over time).

You can watch the original video in the Level 3 section.