Well, given the doctors in the article flat out stated that:
There was a chance that his immune system would go into overdrive, and there was a chance that the edited T-cells wouldn’t be as potent as they expected. The medical team just really couldn’t be sure what would happen.
That article goes on to note all manner of side effects with this style of therapy: fever, tremors, convulsions, encephalitis... and right at the end we have this quote:
He had an atypical skin growth, a chronic cough, a sinus infection, a puddle of fluid at the bottom of his lungs, a virus in his right eye, and bad heartburn.
Of course, as far as side effects go, this is pretty minor. But there's no understanding of why these types of things happen in the first place because our understanding of the immune system in vivo is just not very good.
There was a chance that his immune system would go into overdrive, and there was a chance that the edited T-cells wouldn’t be as potent as they expected. The medical team just really couldn’t be sure what would happen.
That article goes on to note all manner of side effects with this style of therapy: fever, tremors, convulsions, encephalitis... and right at the end we have this quote:
He had an atypical skin growth, a chronic cough, a sinus infection, a puddle of fluid at the bottom of his lungs, a virus in his right eye, and bad heartburn.
Of course, as far as side effects go, this is pretty minor. But there's no understanding of why these types of things happen in the first place because our understanding of the immune system in vivo is just not very good.