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Scientists Probe New Approach's Clinical Potential

Tracy Hampton, PhD

JAMA. 2004;291:2803-2804.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

Clinical researchers are constantly trying to convince cells within the body to change their ways. In some conditions, such as cancer, they want to stop cells from growing; in others, such as Parkinson disease, they want to keep cells from dying.

Because gene expression controls how a cell looks and acts, a logical approach to manipulating a cell's behavior would be to turn genes on or off. But effectively targeting a particular gene within a chromosome is a laborious process, and it is not even currently feasible for some genes. So researchers are studying a variety of other strategies they hope will achieve the same ends.

The gene silencing effect of RNA interference is demonstrated with images of light (red, most intense luciferase expression; blue, least intense) emitted from mice co-transfected with luciferase DNA and either no siRNA, at left, or luciferase siRNA, at right (Nature. . . [Full Text of this Article]

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ABSTRACT | FULL TEXT