Nanotech robots deliver gene therapy through blood

[IDemo]

]b](Reuters) - U.S. researchers have developed tiny nanoparticle robots that can travel through a patient's blood and into tumors where they deliver a therapy that turns off an important cancer gene.

The finding, reported in the journal Nature on Sunday, offers early proof that a new treatment approach called RNA interference or RNAi might work in people.

RNA stands for ribonucleic acid -- a chemical messenger that is emerging as a key player in the disease process.

Dozens of biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies including Alnylam, Merck, Pfizer, Novartis and Roche are looking for ways to manipulate RNA to block genes that make disease-causing proteins involved in cancer, blindness or AIDS.

But getting the treatment to the right target in the body has presented a challenge.

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE62K1BK20100321