Nanobots play a role in Gene-Manipulation Therapy

For the first time in humans, scientists have successfully used small interfering RNAs (siRNAs) to directly interfere with the genetic mechanism of tumor/cancer cells and stop the production of a critical toxic protein that causes cancer cell proliferation and migration. SiRNAs are a class of double-stranded RNA molecules, composed of about 20 to 25 nucleotides, that are involved in the RNA interference pathway. When inserted into the cell, the siRNAs used cleaves specific mRNA molecules that are ordinarily used to make the proteins. However, since its discovery in the late 1990s, scientists have been struggling with how to get the siRNAs to the appropriate cell and make sure that the siRNAs did their job without any off-target effects.

Recently, a research team from the California Institute of Technology devised a nanoparticle system that, when injected into the body, would guide the siRNAS to the cancerous cells and deposit them to do their assigned task. An early phase clinical trial was conducted that involved patients with Melanoma, a virulent form of skin cancer. They injected the patients with cargo-laden nanoparticles directly into the blood stream as opposed to directly into the tumor as many other researchers have done. The nanoparticles made its way smoothly into the target and released its siRNA cargo that would go on to cleave the targeted mRNA and ultimately halt the cancer cell proliferation. Precision of the process is extremely crucial to the treatment, first in targeting the correct cells and next in cleaving the correct location on the targeted mRNA. These nanobots were able to just that. Now it is possible to go selectively at proteins involved in the disease and not have off-target effects.

Though further refinement and optimization of this carrier system is still needed to provide a highly selective way to affect cancer cells and tumors that have until now eluded drug therapy, it won't be long till we see nanobots as a prevailing method of delivering treatment to cancer cells.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/hsn/20100323/hl_hsn/genetargetedcancerfixcouldbeabreakthrough