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Fiona fox's blog
The Science Media Centre asked a molecular biologist to comment on new research published in the journal Nature which used a revolutionary technique to ‘silence’ genes in order to lower blood cholesterol, raising the possibility of new drugs for the treatment of cancer and other conditions.
Dr Mike Gait, Senior Staff Programme Leader at the MRC Lab. of Molecular Biology, Cambridge, said:
“This exciting paper is the first to show activity in monkeys of an important new class of designed molecule that can interfere with an essential RNA that controls specific genes in the liver. There are great prospects for future drug development both for liver diseases and other disease types, and Europe has the potential to match the USA in this area.”