14 DAY TRIAL // 17-month-old Nina Warnell was born suffering from a rare medical condition known to affect just one in 300,000 babies.
Doctors explain that Nina's body lacks an immune system, which means that the baby girl risks being killed by a simple cold that most people can shake off fairly easily.
The baby girl's condition is known to the scientific community as Severe Combined Immunodeficiency Syndrome.
Some prefer calling it “bubble baby syndrome,” seeing how those affected by it must spend all their time in sterilized environments, Daily Mail reports.
Doctors at Great Osmond Street Hospital in the UK hope that they will be able to cure Nina's condition with the help of gene therapy.
They say that the baby girl's body does not have an immune system due to the fact that it lacks an enzyme-producing gene that both fosters the development of an immune system, and keeps the human body's natural defense mechanisms up and running.
In order to equip Nina's body with this enzyme-producing gene, doctors first had to harvest bone marrow from the 17-month-old girl.
Later on, they re-engineered the marrow and transplanted it back inside they girl's body.
They say that, all things considered, Nina's chances of developing an immune system now that her body has been fitted with the missing gene revolve somewhere around 60-90%.
However, it will be some months before they are able to say for sure whether or not this innovative treatment method has done anything to help the girl grow an immune system.
What's more, there are some chances that the child will develop a series of side effects that the scientists have been unable to foresee.
The same source informs us that, should the gene therapy that Nina has been subjected to prove useless, the girl will probably have to undergo a bone marrow transplant.
Otherwise, it is only a matter of time before her “bubble baby syndrome” kills her.