New Gene Therapy Shows Promise for Lung Cancer
It looks like there is a new inhalable form of gene therapy - loosely based on technology that was recognized in the 2006 Nobel medicine prize - that shows increasing promise for treating lung cancer, infectious diseases and inflammatory lung disease, scientists have concluded after an exhaustive review of worldwide research on the topic.
In the released article, Niamh Durcan, Charlotte Murphy, and Sally-Ann Cryan focus on research efforts to develop an inhalable form of RNA interference (RNAi), a gene-therapy technique that interferes with or “silences” genes that make disease-causing proteins. These authors explain that RNAi has several advantages over other gene therapies. Among them are: it is very potent, it’s specific, and it appears to have a very low risk of side effects.
They also cite encouraging results with RNAi in laboratory studies in cells and animals with a range of lung diseases, including lung cancer, certain respiratory infections and inflammatory lung disease. The keys to successful therapy in humans include careful design of the gene-silencing agents, determining the most effective doses of the new drug, and then developing better ways of delivering RNAi agents to the lungs, the scientists say.