The University of Pennsylvania settled a federal lawsuit Friday concerning a gene therapy accident that caused the death of 18-year-old Jesse Gelsinger in September 1999.

The government settled for $517, 496. The settlement also calls for principal investigator of the project, James M. Wilson, to be barred from human clinical research until 2010.

“Reaching this agreement means that I may continue to devote myself fully and without restriction to my laboratory research,” Wilson said in a statement. “I may conduct clinical research when it would be appropriate for scientific advancement.”

Wilson will still remain a faculty member of UPenn and can still contribute to medical research.

According to UW professor of surgery David Mahvi, Wilson was the leader in the field of gene therapy.

“He was a very well-thought of guy,” Mahvi said. “This was not just some guy off of the street.”

Mahvi added the UPenn program for gene therapy was one of the best in the country.

“This was absolute cutting-edge technology by people who were the best in the field,” Mahvi said. “It’s one of those things that probably made sense.”

According to Penn Medicine, Gelsinger went to researchers at the Institute for Human Gene Therapy for treatment of ornithine transcarbamylase deficiency, a disease affecting detoxification of ammonia from the liver.

Gene therapists were aiming to replace the enzyme responsible for detoxifying ammonia, according to Mahvi. He added researchers can use the treatment to treat “tumors and someway make a tumor foreign to the body.”

“You’re basically taking genes that aren’t native to the cell and you’re trying to get the cell to express that gene,” Mahvi said.

Both UW professor emeritus Waclaw Szybalski and Mahvi said incidents like the Gelsinger case at UPenn have never happened at UW.

According to Mahvi, the government shut down all gene therapy centers around the country after the incident.

Mahvi said the UPenn case has had a huge impact on the field of gene therapy and it has taken about three years for the field to recuperate from the immediate governmental interference that resulted when the Pennsylvania incident was reported to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

“For a while [bureaucrats] were very worried about approving new gene therapy trials,” Mahvi said. “They also put in a bunch more regulatory things [and] more hoops to jump through.”

This change resulting from the court decision was signaled in a statement issued by UPenn Feb. 9.

“Over the last five years Penn has established what is now a national model for the conduct of research, including the mandatory training of investigators and staff coupled with a comprehensive internal monitoring program for research involving volunteers,” the statement said.

Still, 83-year-old Szybalski said Wilson was very ambitious and there are always certain risks implementing new treatments. However, Szybalski said he has been a part of many of types of revolutionary treatments.

“My God, if I [didn’t] have new hips [and] everything, I wouldn’t be able to walk,” Szybalski said. “You will find that out when you reach my age, what a great help it is.”