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Ribonucleic acid (RNA) is a biologically important type of molecule that consists of a long chain of nucleotide units. Each nucleotide consists of a nitrogenous base, a ribose sugar, and a phosphate.

NIH grants over $3.8 million to Asuragen

Asuragen, Inc. announced today that it has received over $3.8 million in new grant funding for 2009 from the Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR), Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR), and American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) funded initiatives of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to further its development of molecular diagnostics for oncology and genetic disease.

8 Oct 2009

Idera Pharmaceuticals commences phase 1 IMO-2125 clinical trial for chronic HCV infection

Idera Pharmaceuticals, Inc. today announced that patient treatment has been initiated in a phase 1 clinical trial evaluating IMO-2125 in combination with ribavirin in treatment-naive patients with chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection. IMO-2125 is a novel agonist of Toll-like Receptor (TLR) 9.

7 Oct 2009

Scientists develop new molecule that can deliver genetic-based drugs into cells

Theresa M. Reineke, associate professor of chemistry in the College of Science, and colleagues in her lab at Virginia Tech and at the University of Cincinnati have developed a new molecule that can travel into cells, deliver genetic cargo, and packs a beacon so scientists can follow its movements in living systems.

7 Oct 2009

Researchers identify that KLF17 gene with Id1 gene can regulate breast cancer metastasis

Researchers at The Wistar Institute have identified a key gene (KLF17) involved in the spread of breast cancer throughout the body. They also demonstrated that expression of KLF17 together with another gene (Id1) known to regulate breast cancer metastasis accurately predicts whether the disease will spread to the lymph nodes.

6 Oct 2009

Scientists identify new interference method to target cancer cells

Professor Jo Milner and Dr Shafiq Ahmed, from the YCR P53 Research Unit in the Department of Biology, used a process called RNA interference to target the JNK2 gene in both cancer and healthy cells. The cancer cells died but the healthy cells were unaffected.

6 Oct 2009

New journal on cancer biology and genetics

SAGE announces Genes & Cancer, a monthly journal edited by Dr. Prem Reddy, founder and previous Editor-in-Chief of the prestigious and highly-ranked Oncogene.

6 Oct 2009

AVI BioPharma receives $11.5M DTRA fund to develop AVI-7012 for treating Junin virus infection

AVI BioPharma, Inc. a developer of RNA-based drugs, announced today that it has received expanded contract funding of approximately $11.5 million from the Defense Threat Reduction Agency's (DTRA) Transformational Medical Technologies Initiative (TMTI) to support development of the Investigational New Drug (IND) data package for its candidate drug, AVI-7012, to treat Junin virus infection.

5 Oct 2009

Rxi Pharmaceuticals to ring Nasdaq closing bell in NYC's Times Square

RXi Pharmaceuticals Corporation (Nasdaq: RXII), a biopharmaceutical company pursuing the development and commercialization of proprietary therapeutics based on RNA interference (RNAi), announced today that Tod Woolf, Ph.D., President and CEO, along with members of RXi’s management team, will ring the Nasdaq closing bell tomorrow, Tuesday, Oct 6, 2009 at the Nasdaq Marketsite in New York City’s Times Square.

5 Oct 2009

Researchers engineer antidotes for blood-thinner aptamers

Imagine a surgical patient on a blood-thinning drug who starts bleeding more than expected, and an antidote that works immediately - because the blood thinner and antidote were designed to work together. Researchers at Duke University Medical Center have engineered a way to do this for an entire, versatile class of drugs called aptamers and published their findings in Nature Medicine.

4 Oct 2009

RXi receives USPTO notices of allowance for certain siRNA sequence-specific patent applications

RXi Pharmaceuticals Corporation, a biopharmaceutical company pursuing the development and commercialization of proprietary therapeutics based on RNA interference (RNAi), today announced that Notices of Allowance were recently issued by the United States Patent Office (USPTO) on patent applications filed by Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. and licensed to RXi Pharmaceuticals encompassing small interfering RNA (siRNA) sequences targeting superoxide dismutase (SOD1), Amyloid beta (A4) precursor protein (APP), interleukin-1 receptor-associated kinase 4 (IRAK4), hepatocyte growth factor receptor (MET protooncogene) and cyclin-dependent kinase (cdk) inhibitor p27 (also known as Kip1, CDKN1B).

From Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. 3 Oct 2009

New Magna Pure 96 System from Roche Applied Science

The new MagNA Pure 96 System from Roche Applied Science has been designed and engineered to meet the needs for high throughput laboratories worldwide. Its performance is based on Roche Applied Science’s 10 years experience in the development and application of glass-magnetic-particle based automated nucleic acid purification systems.

1 Oct 2009

Scarab Genomics releases new E. Coli strain

ScarabXpress is the latest strain in the multiple-deletion series (MDS) of Scarab Genomics Clean Genome® E. coli. Based on the MDS™42 strain, ScarabXpress T7lac contains a chromosomal copy of the T7 RNA polymerase gene expressed from a unique, tightly controlled lac promoter.

29 Sep 2009

RXi Pharmaceuticals acquires self-delivering rxRNA technology platform from Advirna

RXi Pharmaceuticals Corporation, a biopharmaceutical company pursuing the development and commercialization of proprietary therapeutics based on RNA interference (RNAi), today announced that it has recently acquired direct ownership of technology for which it had previously exercised its option to exclusively license from Advirna LLC.

25 Sep 2009

Vertex Pharmaceuticals to present SVR data at the 60th Annual Meeting of the American Association

Vertex Pharmaceuticals Incorporated today announced that sustained virologic response (SVR) data from Study C208, which evaluated twice-daily dosing of Vertex’s investigational hepatitis C virus (HCV) protease inhibitor telaprevir, will be presented in an oral presidential plenary session at the 60th Annual Meeting of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases (AASLD) taking place Oct. 30 – Nov. 3, 2009 in Boston.

25 Sep 2009

Researchers study about abnormal gene functioning in mitochondria

Researchers are delving into abnormal gene function in mitochondria, structures within cells that power our lives. Mitochondria are the place where energy is generated from the most basic molecules of food. Because this function is essential to life, defects in mitochondria may affect a wide range of organ systems in humans and animals.

25 Sep 2009

Neuroscience professor receives Institutes of Health Director's New Innovator Award

Leon Reijmers, PhD, assistant professor of neuroscience at Tufts University School of Medicine in Boston, is one of 55 recipients of the National Institutes of Health Director's New Innovator Award. Reijmers is investigating the way memories are stored in the brain, specifically focusing on the proteins involved in long-term memory storage.

25 Sep 2009

Study on mitochondria function

For such crucial biological actors, much remains unknown about exactly how mitochondria function. A new study, published Aug. 12 in the online journal PLoS One, sheds light on mitochondrial biology. Using genetic engineering, researchers interrupted the activity of individual genes directly involved in the production of energy within mitochondria. "If we knock down the function of specific system components, what happens?" said study leader Marni J. Falk, M.D., who directs the Mitochondrial-Genetics Disease Clinic at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. "Our ultimate goal is to translate the knowledge into targeted therapies, that is, effective ways to intervene. But first we need to understand the underlying disease mechanisms."

25 Sep 2009

Direct RNA sequencing performed using Helicos’ True Single Molecule Sequencing technology

Helicos BioSciences Corporation a life science company focused on innovative genetic analysis technologies, today announced the publication of a landmark study in which Helicos’ True Single Molecule Sequencing (tSMS)™ technology was used to directly sequence individual molecules of RNA. The paper appeared yesterday in the on-line edition of Nature and will appear in an upcoming 2009 print issue of Nature.

24 Sep 2009

TSPs can block cancer-triggering proto-oncogenes

A tiny bit of genetic material with no previously known function may hold the key to stopping the spread of cancer, researchers at Yale School of Medicine and Sichuan University in Chengdu, China report in two papers in the September 7-11 issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

24 Sep 2009

Agilent Technologies and Applied Biosystems to co-market SureSelect system

Agilent Technologies Inc. (NYSE:A) and Applied Biosystems, part of Life Technologies Corp. (NASDAQ:LIFE), today introduced the Agilent SureSelect Target Enrichment System, which is optimized for the SOLiD™ System, a next-generation advanced genomic analysis sequencing platform.

23 Sep 2009

RNA News and Research

Further Reading

NIH grants over $3.8 million to Asuragen

Idera Pharmaceuticals commences phase 1 IMO-2125 clinical trial for chronic HCV infection

Scientists develop new molecule that can deliver genetic-based drugs into cells

Researchers identify that KLF17 gene with Id1 gene can regulate breast cancer metastasis

Scientists identify new interference method to target cancer cells

New journal on cancer biology and genetics

AVI BioPharma receives $11.5M DTRA fund to develop AVI-7012 for treating Junin virus infection

Rxi Pharmaceuticals to ring Nasdaq closing bell in NYC's Times Square

Researchers engineer antidotes for blood-thinner aptamers

RXi receives USPTO notices of allowance for certain siRNA sequence-specific patent applications

New Magna Pure 96 System from Roche Applied Science

Scarab Genomics releases new E. Coli strain

RXi Pharmaceuticals acquires self-delivering rxRNA technology platform from Advirna

Vertex Pharmaceuticals to present SVR data at the 60th Annual Meeting of the American Association

Researchers study about abnormal gene functioning in mitochondria

Neuroscience professor receives Institutes of Health Director's New Innovator Award

Study on mitochondria function

Direct RNA sequencing performed using Helicos’ True Single Molecule Sequencing technology

TSPs can block cancer-triggering proto-oncogenes

Agilent Technologies and Applied Biosystems to co-market SureSelect system

Discover how SciY empowers scientists

Why use light scattering to analyze proteins and viral vectors?

Changing the landscape of R&D to build clinical success from the ground up

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