I've grown up fascinated with several diseases and was eager to study them and find treatments that would better and prolong the life of the patients. By the time I was done with university my disease pet peeves were already very well managed. Take cystic fibrosis, a disease that was still considered a childhood disease when I was born in the 90s. With trikafta and other treatments CF patients now climb mount everest and whatnot. They have kids, back in school I learned that the few cases who made it to adulthood were infertile because of their viscous mucus. Like, I would love to work on an mRNA based gene therapy for it, but it seems almost unnecessary, given how manageable the disease has become.

I also agree and want to stress what you are saying about the acceptance of gene therapy/ GMOs in general. I am in Germany and people here are insanely against GMOs of any kind. Manipulating the human genome is so far off the rails for the vast majority, I mean there is still so much hate against GMOs in food, we are nowhere near trying to use gene therapy on a broad scale. Let alone that to actually cure a genetic disease, you would have to undergo the gene therapy while you're still a zygote. This is simply illegal here. Our research opportunities are severely limited on genetic manipulation.