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18Comments

  3. 3.

    jobiuspublius

    Don’t play innocent, Cole. I know you’re waging Psyops against us. First you thorw out them silly threads to keep us penned up in entertainment. Then, you set up a real intelligent adult thread. You can post, but, you can’t hide.

  4. 4.

    tBone

    I think the Intelligent Designer must have been distracted when jobiuspublius was going through the assembly line.

  6. 6.

    jobiuspublius

    lol. 2 birds one stone. Very good tbone.

    Sirna’s promising treatment is based on the science of RNAi (the i is for interference), which has tremendous promise for treating just about every disease.

    I wonder what this does too the stem cell debate. I guess the pharmacuetical industry prefers this over stem cells.

  7. 7.

    ppGaz

    Is this faith-based medical intervention?

    If not, then it’s just the ramblings of godless scientists who are clearly looking to puff themselves up in the eyes of the nonbelievers.

  8. 8.

    Gamer

    This will probably have very little to do with stem cells. While it may provide an early intervention to check diseases that lead to cell death, obviating the need for stem cells to physically repair the damage, it will not be a replacement in cases of cell death by trauma (injury, stroke, heart attack, etc.).

  9. 9.

    Treats

    John,

    RNAi is a really cool technology that has proven to be a real leap forward in the lab. We’re alreay able to use it in the mouse, and it’s only a matter of time before we can use it in humans. It is a completely separate entity from stem cell research, and the range of treatments offered by each approach does not completely overlap. Now, I will prepare to watch my Huskies begin another run at an 0-8 season in the Pac-10. Then I will light myself on fire.

  10. 10.

    Craig

    This technology has been around for a long time, a few years, and is “all the rage”. It has lot of potential, but not as much as the article lets on. It will be hard to use the techonogy in diseases where genes are mutated such as genetic diseases. It is also hard to imagine an easy use in environmental diseases.

    It has great potential in diseases where proteins tend to accumulate such as alzheimers and ALS as well as in viral diseases.

    It is an exciting technology, but was was commented above, it is unlikely to replace stem cell interventions.

  11. 11.

    Nash

    The synthetic RNAi technology, expanding on the small interfering RNA (siRNA), is being shown effective in studying etiologies of disease. Because in vivo validation, however, has been mostly elusive so far, it is less than a sure thing that RNAi will prove to be the therapeutic boon that all of the breathless talk about it promises. Lipid transfections haven’t worked for all primary cells, although there are other modalities being worked.

    I remember a decade ago when everyone was in a rapture over hammerhead ribozymes.

    Not saying it won’t happen, just saying history cautions against hysteria.

  12. 12.

    scs

    Good article. Good to comment on something besides partisanship. I’m convinced that one day medicine will be able to let us live forever. Until then, I am also skeptical that this will work so soon. I remember when gene transfers was a big deal and they tried to use the cold virus to do DNA modifications and a teenager died in the experiment. So far, not too much progress with gene transfers. What I don’t get is how do they interfere with just specific bad RNAs. No cancer risk? Anyway, you never know, maybe this one will work out better.

  13. 13.

    DougJ

    I remember when gene transfers was a big deal and they tried to use the cold virus to do DNA modifications and a teenager died in the experiment

    Do you have a link for this? Are you sure that wasn’t an X-Files episode?

  14. 14.

    Shygetz

    What I don’t get is how do they interfere with just specific bad RNAs. No cancer risk?

    The short answer is, the structure of the RNAi is such that it only stops the targeted RNA with any success. There is certainly a very mild cancer risk (as well as just about any other genetic disease) from the slight possibility that the RNAi will stop something that it wasn’t designed to stop, but it can be cured by terminating the treatment, as the RNAi does not self-replicate. The technical challenges with RNAi delivery are still a big hurdle, but it is interesting technology.

  15. 15.

    Tim F

    Do you have a link for this? Are you sure that wasn’t an X-Files episode?

    It’s absolutely correct. The treatment is called ‘gene therapy,.’ It works when you have a patient who doesn’t have enough of a particular gene or in which the patient’s mutant gene would not interfere with a normal copy if it were present (that’s called the ‘dominant-negative effect’). You use a virus to ‘infect’ the patient with a gene that the patient needs. In theory it works great, but viruses can be unpredictable to work with because of how happy they are to mutate and swap genes with each other. For example.

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