POTENTIALLY HUGE: Caltech-led team provides proof they can "turn off" cancer at the source via nanoparticles

03/21/10

Caltech-led Team Provides Proof in Humans of RNA Interference Using Targeted Nanoparticles
Researchers unveil scientific results from siRNA Phase I clinical trial in cancer patients

PASADENA, Calif.—A California Institute of Technology (Caltech)-led team of researchers and clinicians has published the first proof that a targeted nanoparticle—used as an experimental therapeutic and injected directly into a patient’s bloodstream—can traffic into tumors, deliver double-stranded small interfering RNAs (siRNAs), and turn off an important cancer gene using a mechanism known as RNA interference (RNAi). Moreover, the team provided the first demonstration that this new type of therapy, infused into the bloodstream, can make its way to human tumors in a dose-dependent fashion—i.e., a higher number of nanoparticles sent into the body leads to a higher number of nanoparticles in the tumor cells.

These results, published in the March 21 advance online edition of the journal Nature, demonstrate the feasibility of using both nanoparticles and RNAi-based therapeutics in patients, and open the door for future "game-changing" therapeutics that attack cancer and other diseases at the genetic level, says Mark Davis, the Warren and Katharine Schlinger Professor of Chemical Engineering at Caltech, and the research team’s leader.

via media.caltech.edu

Essentially what this means is that it seems completely possible to literally turn the off-switch for cancer genes.

This is potentially HUGE. Should I even try to find any mainstream news sources who covered this story?

Posted via web from thepete's posterous