Two Americans Receive Nobel Prize
October 11, 2006
Two American scientists, Craig C. Mello and Andrew Z. Fire, recently received the Nobel Prize in medicine for their findings related to RNA interference, or RNAi. Scientists believe this promising discovery could lead to the end of disease-causing genes.
RNA is a genetic material that acts as a messenger inside cells. While most RNA occurs as a single strand, certain viruses have double-stranded RNA. RNAi is the process which breaks up the double-stranded RNA, allowing the cell to survive the infection.
RNAi is already being used to study the function of genes and may lead to further therapies in the future. Scientists have been able to use RNAi to effectively silence more than a dozen known cancer-causing genes in laboratory cell cultures. While this has yet to translate to results in humans, the future looks promising.
Researchers are just beginning to investigate how RNAi might reach and penetrate tumors. It is also believed some RNAi therapies may be used to support chemotherapy by preventing drug resistance, which is estimated to occur in 20 to 50% of all current treatments.
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October 11, 2006
Two American scientists, Craig C. Mello and Andrew Z. Fire, recently received the Nobel Prize in medicine for their findings related to RNA interference, or RNAi. Scientists believe this promising discovery could lead to the end of disease-causing genes.RNA is a genetic material that acts as a messenger inside cells. While most RNA occurs as a single strand, certain viruses have double-stranded RNA. RNAi is the process which breaks up the double-stranded RNA, allowing the cell to survive the infection.
RNAi is already being used to study the function of genes and may lead to further therapies in the future. Scientists have been able to use RNAi to effectively silence more than a dozen known cancer-causing genes in laboratory cell cultures. While this has yet to translate to results in humans, the future looks promising.
Researchers are just beginning to investigate how RNAi might reach and penetrate tumors. It is also believed some RNAi therapies may be used to support chemotherapy by preventing drug resistance, which is estimated to occur in 20 to 50% of all current treatments.
<< Back
