The next in our "Best of the Month" series is from November 1, 1013:
 |
| Gold nanoparticles (yellow) with small
interfering RNAs (green) knock down an oncogene in glioblastoma. |
In a study of mice released this week in
Science Nanomedicine,
researchers were able to reduce glioblastoma size three- to four-fold
by switching off the oncogene Bcl2Like12 by means of
nanotechnology-assisted delivery of small interfering RNAs. Normal
(linear) nucleic acids cannot get into cells, but these spherical
nucleic acids can. Small interfering RNA (siRNA) surrounds a gold
nanoparticle like a shell; the nucleic acids are highly oriented,
densely packed and form a tiny sphere. (The gold nanoparticle core is
only 13 nanometers in diameter.) The RNA’s sequence is programmed to
silence the disease-causing gene.
“This is a beautiful marriage of a new technology with the genes of a
terrible disease,” said Chad A. Mirkin, a nanomedicine expert and a
senior co-author of the study. “Using highly adaptable spherical nucleic
acids, we specifically targeted a gene associated with GBM and turned
it off
in vivo. This proof-of-concept further establishes a broad
platform for treating a wide range of diseases, from lung and colon
cancers to rheumatoid arthritis and psoriasis.”
Dr. Alexander H. Stegh discovered the Bcl2Like12 oncogene in 2007. "The
beauty of the gene we silenced in this study is that it plays many
different roles in therapy resistance,." says Stegh. "Taking the gene
out of the
picture should allow conventional therapies to be more effective.”
Again, thanks to loyal reader and friend, Dr. Doug Shevlin (pictured above on far left with alt country singer
Eef Barzelay on far right), for alerting me to this new development in the field of nanotechnogenomics.
Researchers at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden have introduced what could possibly be a revolution in article in Cell, researchers found that molecules known as vacquinols "reliably and selectively compromised" neoplastic cell viability. Vacquinols stimulates cell death by membrane ruffling, vacuolization, and -- ultimately -- cytoplasmic membrane rupture. Although in vivo testing has been restricted to mice thus far, this paper may prove to be the beginning of a new avenue of research into the selective killing glioblastoma cells in patients.
