New 'bubble baby' treatment means kisses for 18 kids

A new treatment for children with "bubble baby" conditions means a pair of California twins can finally have their chubby cheeks kissed.

A team at the University of California Los Angeles has combined two techniques gene therapy and stem cell therapy to treat 18 children with a genetically inherited immune condition called ADA-deficient severe combined immunodeficiency or SCID. They think it may be a true cure, but will have to wait a few more years to be sure.

Its made all the difference for two-year-old Evangelina Padilla-Vaccaro, who was diagnosed just weeks after she and her twin sister Annabella were born.

Hearing that news, you just figure your kid is dead, said Alysia Padilla-Vaccaro. Youre supposed to be showing off your kids, not thinking youre going to be burying one, she added, wiping away tears.

A bone marrow transplant can cure the condition, but Annabella wasnt a match for Evangelina. That meant isolation, because with ADA-SCID, even a common cold can kill.

So there was no kissing of our babies, Padilla-Vaccaro said. You just want to bite those chubby cheeks and kiss that face and we didn't get that until they were about 18 months old, she added.

The UCLA medical team at UCLAs Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research, led by Dr. Donald Kohn, announced it has cured 18 children with severe combined immunodeficiency.

SCID is really rare and ADA-SCID even rarer affecting maybe one in a million children. Its caused by defective genes and in the case of ADA-SCID its the gene responsible for an immune system component called adenosine deaminase.

Courtesy Padilla-Vaccaro family

Evangelina Padilla-Vaccaro was diagnosed with a "bubble baby" condition just weeks after she and her twin sister Annabella were born.

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New 'bubble baby' treatment means kisses for 18 kids