Proof In Humans Of RNA Interference Using Targeted Nanoparticles - Health News - redOrbit

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The discovery of RNA interference, the mechanism by which double strands of RNA silence genes, won researchers Andrew Fire and Craig Mello the 2006 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.... "RNAi is a new way to stop the production of proteins," says Davis. What makes it such a potentially powerful tool, he adds, is the fact that its target is not a protein. The vulnerable areas of a protein may be hidden within its three-dimensional folds, making it difficult for many therapeutics to reach them. In contrast, RNA interference targets the messenger RNA (mRNA) that encodes the information needed to make a protein in the first place. "In principle," says Davis, "that means every protein now is druggable because its inhibition is accomplished by destroying the mRNA. And we can go after mRNAs in a very designed way given all the genomic data that are and will become available."