This clinical though often emotionally charged program challenges one of the most seductive and controversial ideas in all medicine: gene therapy. Scientists once thought its concept beautifully simple: remove the defective genes and replace them with healthy ones. Research was thought to advance when Dr. James Wilson determined that the best way to transport the healthy genes into the patient’s cells would be via the adenovirus. Jesse Gelsinger, who had a non-life-threatening genetic disorder, was asked to take part in a trial using the virus as a vector. The tragic results that followed taught Gelsinger’s family that gene therapy is decades away from being the wonder cure scientists hoped it would be. A BBCW Production. (50 minutes)