Difference between revisions of "Team:Hong Kong UCCKE/HP/Silver"

Interview with Dr.Pierre Chan

Background

Rates of gout in Hong Kong are rising in the last decade, UCCKE igem team was honored to interview Dr. Pierre Chan, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of China Legislative Councilor (Medical) on 30th August 2017 to know more about the current situation of this arthritis in the society. The topic of the interview was about gout and the application and concerns of gene therapy.

Gout in Hong Kong

Dr. Chan summarized the cause of gout of most patients in Hong Kong as “the diet of a middle-aged man during a hot pot dinner” beer, mushroom, meat and edible viscera. Most patients in Hong Kong suffer from swelling and pain in their joints after a hot pot dinner. In fact, more than 90 percent of them can benefit from colchicine and NSAID which is commonly offered by doctors. Others are recommend to use steroid alternatively. Steroid was considered harmful to the body by most of the patient in Hong Kong. However, Dr. Chan explained that steroid used in treating gout will not cause any potential harm to the patient considering that the amount of steroid used is very small. Commonly used painkiller, Colchicine and NSAID are very effective in terms of relieving pain in joints.For example, it can relieve the pain of a gout attack within an hour after the patient took the medicine. However, Dr. Chan described the medication as a sword as the effect and side effect coexist in a patient’s body which can affect one’s digestive system. For a long-term prevention of gout, Dr. Chan emphasized that diet restriction is the best way.

Gene Therapy

As gene therapy is still in a developing stage, Dr. Chan is not very supportive towards the application of gene therapy. He suggested that this technique will require at least 10-20 years of investigation in order to gain the reliability for the therapy. He quoted thalassemia, a single-gene disorder as an example to explain the difficulty of applying gene therapy to a patient. He believes that gene therapy will be an ideal way of treating diseases once the technique is fully developed.

https://static.igem.org/mediawiki/2017/1/18/T--Hong_Kong_UCCKE--patient1.jpg

https://static.igem.org/mediawiki/2017/5/52/T--Hong_Kong_UCCKE--patient2.jpg