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NBC's Richard Engel Shares Heartbreaking Reaction to New Medical Breakthrough That Could Potentially Have Saved His Son

After reading a 'New York Times' report about a baby being healed with the first-ever personalized gene-editing treatment, Richard Engel penned an emotional personal essay about how the new medical breakthrough could have potentially saved his son Henry's life.

"We’d sit with Savanah Guthrie, who has been supporting ongoing research using Henry’s cells, and talk — cautiously, hopefully and thankfully — about the progress we were seeing," continued Engel. The journalist first announced with a post on X in August 2022 that his 6-year-old son had died after a years-long battle with Rett Syndrome, a rare genetic neurological disorder that leads to severe physical and cognitive impairments and has no cure, according to the Mayo Clinic. We always surrounded him with love and he returned it, and so much more," Engel wrote, before giving another update in a follow-up post, "Researchers are making amazing progress using Henry's cells to help cure Rett Syndrome so others don't have to endure this terrible disease."

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