Gene therapy trials at the university were shut down.
As a result, the FDA stopped many gene therapy trials and tightened regulations on consent.
Companies conducting gene therapy trials are therefore required to monitor where in the body the new genes are being inserted.
Dr. Philip Noguchi, the agency official who oversees gene therapy trials, described the rationale for the agency's decision.
He added that several other centres in the US were gearing up to start gene therapy trials for sickle cell using similar approaches.
"Most gene therapy trials are done in people with life-threatening or terminal illnesses," Dr. Jay P. Siegel, a Food and Drug Administration official, told a Senate subcommittee.
The Food and Drug Administration said it would require sponsors of gene therapy trials to provide the agency with regular updates.
B3 Neediest Cases B4 ARTS E1-12 SCIENCE/HEALTH Gene Therapy Trials Suspended The Food and Drug Administration suspended 27 gene therapy trials involving several hundred patients after learning that a second child treated in France had developed a condition resembling leukemia.
Last year the festering discomfort many felt with the proliferating gene therapy trials came to a head when a teenager, Jesse Gelsinger, died in a clinical trial at the University of Pennsylvania.
Odd, then, that B.N.L.'s director, John Marburger, cited "discouraging results" in the neutron capture therapy trials as the reason that the Department of Energy was ending funding for the reactor.
Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, using funds from the Department of Energy, recently upgraded their own reactor to continue boron neutron capture therapy trials on people suffering from skin cancer.
