Current Affairs 3rd September 2017

Current Affairs 3rd September 2017 - Important Points

• First gene-altering leukemia treatment approved by - FDA
• NASA Astronaut Peggy Whitson to return home after 288 days in space on - 2nd September 2017

Current Affairs 3rd September 2017 - Details

First gene-altering leukemia treatment approved by - FDA

The USFDA (US Food and Drug Administration) approved a new leukemia treatment, called Kymriah on 30th August 2017. The treatment is considered by the agency as the first gene therapy that it has cleared to hit the market in the United States.
The main motto of this treatment is to give some patients a second chance after first-line drugs have failed. Each dose of Kymriah contains a patient's own immunity cells, which are sent to a lab to be genetically modified using a virus. This therapy is called as chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapy (CAR-T), gives the cells the ability to recognize and kill the cancer source.

More about Kymriah

• It is a cell-based gene therapy.
• It is approved in the US for the treatment of patients up to 25 years of age with B-cell precursor Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia (of ALL the types) that is refractory or in second or later relapse.
• This therapy is a genetically-modified autologous T-cell immunotherapy.
• Kymriah's each dose is a customized treatment created using an individual patient’s own T-cells, a type of white blood cell known as a lymphocyte.
• T-cells of the patient are collected and sent to a manufacturing center where they are genetically modified to include a new gene containing a specific protein that directs the T-cells to target and kill leukaemia cells having a specific antigen (CD19) on the surface.
• After the modfication of cells, they are infused back into the patient to kill the cancer cells.

NASA Astronaut Peggy Whitson to return home after 288 days in space on - 2nd September 2017

NASA Astronaut Peggy Whitson is returned to Earth from the International Space Station on 2nd September 2017, after completing its 288 days mission. Whitson is returned with her Expedition 52 crewmates, Nasa’s Jack Fischer and Fyodor Yurchikhin of the Russian space agency Roscosmos. They landed in Kazakhstan.

Important Highlights

• Whitson's return marked the end of her third long-duration stay onboard the space station.
• She had gone up to the station on 17th November 2016, already having an accumulated space time of 377 days.
• On 24th April 2017, Whitson broke former American Astronaut Jeff Williams' standing US record of 534 cumulative days in space.
• At the time of their landing, she had accrued a total of 665 days in space over the course of her career (3 space missions), which is more than any American astronaut till date.
• The feat placed her at the 8th position on the all-time space endurance list.
• Other than this, Whitson also holds the record for most spacewalks by a female.