Seminar in the History of Science, Medicine, and Technology

'Will I Have to Mortgage My House? Reflections on Gene Therapy, Innovation, and Inequality in the USA'

Eben Kirksey (Oxford)

The first FDA-approved gene therapy, Kymriah, was released to the public in August 2017 with a $475,000 price tag. With the emergence of personalized genetic medicine, we are entering a new era of profound inequality. This talk explores the stories of children and parents who signed up for the Kymriah clinical trial before it was approved--risking their lives and household finances in pursuit of a cancer cure. Issues of race and class played out at Penn Medicine, as researchers explored new horizons of hope with living cellular therapies.


The seminar in the History of Science, Medicine, and Technology is convened by Alex Aylward (University of Oxford), Erica Charters (Wolfson College), Mark Harrison (University of Oxford), Catherine Jackson (Harris Manchester College), and Sloan Mahone (University of Oxford)