RE:RE:RE:RE:Encouraging Maybe the best way to think about it is delivering a different type of bomb using the same targeting system. Maybe call it a stealth bomb. What siRNA does is essentially turn off or silence genes. You could basically pick any gene that was essential to cancer growth and silence that. It has the feel of an intervention that can be highly focused. Part of the problem with siRNA is the difficulty in delivering the molecule to the cell. Some of those problem an efficient scavenger molecule like SORT1 might help with. There are other problems like hiding the molecule from the immune system that probably can only be shown with actual data. Another issue with siRNA is it can produce off-target toxicity if it gets into healthy cells, again if SORT1 directs it more efficiently to cancer cells rather than healthy cells then you might have a fix for that too.
I'd think of siRNA as a hot molecule in biotech, a potentially super smart bomb. Highly focused, the type of thing Pharma love.
palinc2000 wrote: Can you elaborate how that would be different from the current PDC ?
qwerty22 wrote: Here is an example of an siRNA conjugate developed by academic researchers at Duke that delivers siRNA to prostate cancer by targeting the PSMA antigen.
https://www.qpcrupdate.info/mcnamara-sirna-2006.pdf
qwerty22 wrote:
Seems exciting. I would generally think of this as the expansion of the SORT1 technology that would come after validation of TH1902 in the present trial. After all if they have nothing coming out of this trial it's much harder to get the investment in follow on molecules. Having said that, in the scheme of things, it's a pretty small investment in one scientist and bench fees. So again it looks like they believe that the validation is coming (maybe).