Thalassemias are diverse group of hereditary disorders in which there is a reduced rate of synthesis of one or more of the globin polypeptide chains. These are genetically transmitted disorders. Current approaches include hematopoietic stem cell transplantation. Disease management includes prenatal diagnosis, transfusion therapy, bone marrow transplantation (BMT); out of which only BMT is potentially curative. Transplant-related mortality and graft-vs-host disease are the limitation of the current approaches.
As thalassemia is genetically derived disorder, genetic and cellular targets are potential approaches in management of disease. Deliveries of transgenes in stem cell based gene therapy are effective in the therapeutic management. Gene transfer using onco-retroviral vectors and lentiviral vectors are beneficial. Lentiviral vectors have an advantage over onco-retroviral vector due to integration of larger element and minimal sequence rearrangement. Induced pluripotent stem cells, splice-switching and stop codon read-through are other genetic approaches which are showing advantages over the current therapy.