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Having demonstrated a year ago an effective nanotech method for shutting down specific gene expression in a mouse model of colitis, a team of researchers at Tel Aviv University is preparing to test this method in clinical trials for blood, pancreatic, breast and brain cancers.

Using a promising nanotech approach to deliver the RNA molecules, a type of nanoparticle described as a neutral liposome was administered to mice bearing melanoma tumors and found to cause a significant decrease in tumor growth and in the number of metastatic tumor colonies.

Nanoparticles can introduce two very promising, but easily degraded, therapeutic molecules into a laboratory model of human skin, and together they are much more effective than either is alone is slowing the development of deadly melanoma skin cancer.

A major nanotech advance in engineering multifunctional nanoparticles for imaging and therapeutic applications combines a short RNA (siRNA) to “silence” a specific gene with quantum dots and a “proton sponge” polymer coating to get the siRNA into the cell and released into the right compartment of the cell.

For a review of three recent advances in using nanoparticles for siRNA anticancer therapy, provided by the National Cancer Institute’s Alliance for Nanotechnology in Cancer…

Betterhmans is reporting on progress of scientists at USC in combining several nanoscale technologies (transferrin based transport vehicles with small interfering RNA segments (siRNAs)) to effectively combat cancer, in this case Ewing's sarcoma, a type of cancer which impacts children. Interfering RNAs are small RNA strands which preferentially bind to complementary messenger RNA (mRNA). This activates cellular processes, presumably evolved to defend against double stranded RNA viruses, that destroy the double stranded RNA effectively reducing or eliminating the activity of the protein normally produced by the specific mRNA targeted by the siRNA.

The article with links to background information is here. There is significant potential for using this type of therapy to combat other types of cancer where the overexpression of a specific gene or protein is the primary cause of the disease.

While this is not diamondoid molecular nanotechnology it it can legitimately be considered molecular nanotechnology because it is nanoscale, it is based on precision activity at the nanoscale level and takes advantage of molecular processes and machinery normally found in cells.

Gaming the Future: The Book!

Results for "siRNA"

Nanotechnology method to shut down cancer inches toward clinical trials

Targeting highly metastatic melanomas with nanotechnology

Nanotechnology shrinks tumors by targeting two genes

Nanotechnology approach to drug delivery uses multifunctional nanoparticles to silence gene

Silencing gene expression for cancer therapy through nanotechnology

Clever uses of bionanotech in medicine

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