When 13-month-old Adam’s stem cell transplant failed, doctors had two options: a second transplant, which they warned carried a 10% to 15% risk of death, or a new and untested gene therapy.
His parents, Mary Beth and Dave Brennan, had watched Adam endure the first transplant. At one point, he couldn’t breathe and nurses rushed into the room to keep him alive. So they went with gene therapy — and then watched Adam, born with a life-threatening rare disease, reach milestones, learn sign language, and teach himself to read.
Then last year a routine scan revealed a golf-ball-sized tumor on his brain.
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