MODENA, ITALY — A young patient who lost most of his skin to a genetic disease now has a new chance at life, thanks to a breakthrough therapy that gave him replacement skin. <br /> <br />The New York Times reports that the 7-year-old boy was born with junctional epidermolysis bullosa, a condition in which a gene defect causes the skin to become fragile, often tearing and forming blisters. <br /> <br />By June 2015, the boy gotten two bacterial infections that destroyed two-thirds of his skin. He was treated with antibiotics, bandages, and even a skin graft from his father, but nothing worked. <br /> <br />Doctors decided to use gene therapy on a patch of non blistered skin, and used a virus to carry a corrected version of the defective gene into the skin cells. <br /> <br />The engineered cells were grown into sheets of skin and grafted onto the child's body to replace his missing skin. <br /> <br />The grafts took and grew, and the patient was discharged by February 2016. His epidermis is currently stable and doesn't blister or itch.
