WASHINGTON – Two U.S. Senate hearings this week bring prospects for more federal support for the kind of medical research and preventive programs that have marked Colorado health care efforts in recent years.

This week the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee heard witnesses describe promising treatments from gene editing.

“We’re really on the verge of new horizons with this therapy,” Katrine Bosley, chief executive officer of Cambridge, Mass.-based Editas Medicine Inc., told the Senate panel.

The hearing was intended to help lawmakers decide how to allocate billions of dollars of research and treatment funding. Gene editing and preventive health care are high priorities as Congress considers new legislation.

Gene editing refers to genetic engineering in which defective or diseased portions of DNA are chemically cut away and replaced through genetic recombination. Scientists say gene editing could be used to cure birth defects and genetically based diseases.

Some of the research that has converted gene editing from an unreliable, cumbersome and expensive treatment to a practical medical procedure has been done recently at Colorado State University and the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus.

The University of Colorado’s Functional Genomics Facility is a clearinghouse for gene editing tools used for genetic research studies throughout the state.

“These studies have involved gene editing in human cells as well as rodent models of various diseases,” Joaquin Espinosa, a University of Colorado pharmacology and genomics professor, told Colorado Politics.

Some of the Colorado work is supported by grants from the National Cancer Institute.

“Within this framework, Colorado is strongly positioned to become a leader in the field of gene-editing for applications in human medicine,” Espinosa said.

The Senate hearing was held one day before scientists in Oakland, Calif., announced that for the first time they have edited a gene inside the body of man suffering from Hunter syndrome.

The 44-year-old man received billions of copies of a corrective gene intravenously.

Persons afflicted with Hunter syndrome lack a gene for an enzyme that breaks down carbohydrates, leading to infections, neurological disorders and distorted facial features. Until the treatment in Oakland on Wednesday, there was no cure for Hunter syndrome.

If the first treatment is successful, it is expected to lead to widespread use of gene editing for many diseases.

Senators during this week’s hearing asked whether placing new genes into human beings could lead to unintended consequences, such as cancer.

The expert witnesses acknowledged there could be unforeseen risks but said Food and Drug Administration regulatory oversight is likely to minimize the health hazards.

Jan Leach, a Colorado State University plant biologist, said techniques being used now have reduced the dangers of gene editing.

“One positive with genome editing, whether used in animals or plants, is that the changes are very precise, minimizing off-target or unintended effects and increasing safety,” she told Colorado Politics.

Also this week, the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee held a separate hearing with U.S. Surgeon General Jerome M. Adams to consider greater federal investment in preventive health care.

U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet, a Democrat from Denver, is a member of the committee. He did not speak at either of the hearings.

“Chronic diseases – like heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease – are the leading cause of death and disability in the U.S. and among the most costly, yet these afflictions may be preventable,” Adams said in his testimony.

Economic losses from preventable diseases include hundreds of billions of dollars each year, he said.

He recommended that employers offer financial incentives, such as health insurance premium subsidies, for workers who maintain recommended body weights, low blood pressure or other signs of good health. The benefits for companies would be greater than the costs, Adams said.

Public investment, such as building bike lanes, also return more to the economy than they cost, Adams said. He claimed $12 in health care savings from bike lanes for every $1 invested to build them.

Some of Adams’ recommendations are similar to disease prevention provisions in Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper’s 2013 State of Health agenda.

“The governor’s State of Health has served as our primer for advancing preventive health, allowing us to invest in and emphasize multiple preventive health strategies including decreasing obesity, reducing unintended pregnancy, improving immunization rates and preventing youth use of marijuana and tobacco,” said Larry Wolk, executive director of the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment.