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t m c ยป p u l s e | j u ly 2 0 1 7 8 Bursting the Bubble Babies born with the same rare genetic disorder as "bubble boy" David Vetter have reason to hope B lanca Romero gave birth to her son, Sebastian, on Feb. 12, 2017, at Houston Methodist Hospital in Katy. At 8 lbs. 9 oz., Sebastian had plump cheeks, big brown eyes and a head full of thick black hair. He was, by all appearances, a perfectly healthy baby boy. Sebastian was Romero's third child, so she was familiar with the post-delivery drill. She took him to his newborn screening with the pedia- trician, but something wasn't quite right with one of his tests. The results showed abnormalities in Sebastian's immune system. "It was scary to hear your child has something, but you don't know what it is," Romero said. Romero and her husband, Emil, met with Sarah Nicholas, M.D., an allergy and immunology specialist at Texas Children's Hospital, who explained that their son had a rare genetic disorder called severe combined immunodefi- ciency (SCID). The condition is more commonly known as "bubble boy disease," named for David Vetter, who suffered from the same illness and was forced to live his short life in a sterile plastic bubble. Born in 1971, Vetter was also treated at Texas Children's. Patients with SCID are born miss- ing their T cells, a type of white blood cell that protects the body from foreign invaders by killing viruses and sending instructions to the rest of the immune system. In some SCID cases, patients may be born without their B cells, a white blood cell that produces antibodies, or natural killer (NK) cells, a white blood cell that kills viruses and tumor cells. Without the body's natural defense system, Sebastian and other babies with SCID are at high risk for B y S h a n l e y C h i e n Sebastian Romero in his crib at Texas Children's Hospital on May 31. severe and recurrent infections, such as pneumonia. "Even a slight cold could turn deadly, a rash could turn into an infec- tion and turn deadly," Romero said. "Anything could kill him." But there was hope. With chemo- therapy and a bone marrow transplant, Sebastian had a good chance of living in the real world. Living in a bubble Although Sebastian didn't need to live in a plastic chamber like Vetter, the environment he required at home