Something for the weekend?!!!This is a link to a paper published by the William’s Fund research team yesterday … Please follow the links to read the full reports.
HTML Version: https://www.mdpi.com/2218-273X/12/8/1129/htm
PDF Version: https://www.mdpi.com/2218-273X/12/8/1129/pdf
Feel free to share and rejoice in the progress Professor Townley and the team are making…
I asked Prof Townley for a ‘layman’s summary’ as I was bamboozled by the science!
This is a quick bite at it…
‘You can stop genes being expressed (or reduce expression) using siRNA. however, you need to
1. identify the right genes to target and
2. deliver the siRNA to the cells.
We showed that for the alveolar RMS you can use KRT17 to knockdown 88% of the expression and this increases cell death. Because of the surface charge on siRNA you can’t just put it into the body and expect it to go across membranes (it also gets degraded really rapidly). So, attaching it to nanoparticles helps both these things.
To go one step further we wanted to control the release of the siRNA only into cancer cells.
We showed that the GSH levels are different in the RMS cells.
Therefore we designed the system so that only when GSH is high will the siRNA be released from the particle and have a biological effect.’
Simples!!
Thank goodness for our researchers! (NOT paid for by pharma!)