Gene therapy holds great promise in treating cancer and many other diseases. However, the development of a scalable system for delivering genes into cells efficiently and safely has been challenging. Now, two teams of researchers have developed a versatile nano-enabled platforms that could get therapeutic genes safely and efficiently in cancer cells. In one study, [...]

Small pieces of nucleic acid known as short interfering RNA, or siRNA, can disable the production of specific proteins, a property that makes them one of the most promising new classes of anticancer drugs in development. In fact, at least two siRNA-based therapies against cancer, both delivered to tumors in nanoparticles, have begun human clinical [...]

Scientists funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) have discovered what happens to nanoparticles when they enter biomimetic human cells. They found that the important proteins that form the outer layer of the nanoparticles are degraded by an enzyme called cathepsin L. Scientists now have to take into account this phenomenon and [...]