30 October 2009 - Thermo Fisher Scientific has announced the recipients of more than USD400,000 (GBP240,000) in RNA-interference (RNAi) reagents to advance biomedical research and drug discovery.
The recipients will receive various siRNA, shRNA and microRNA reagents from the Dharmacon and Open Biosystems RNAi technology portfolios, marketed under the Thermo Scientific brand.
Five projects were chosen for awards from the Thermo Scientific RNAi Discovery Grant programme, based on their potential to advance science and medicine.
Terence Dermody and Borden Lacy at Vanderbilt University will receive a whole genome small-interfering RNA (siRNA) screening package to investigate pathogen cell entry.
They hope to identify the host proteins required for various microbial pathogens to enter living cells.
This could open new avenues for research into host-pathogen interaction and point to new drug targets.
“This grant will allow us to combine our efforts in studies of how bacterial toxins and viruses gain entry into host cells and may lead to development of new classes of antimicrobial agents”, said Dermody, professor of paediatrics, microbiology and immunology at Vanderbilt.
The University of Montreal’s Roger Lippe will receive a custom siRNA sub-library targeting human genes, which will be used to identify cellular proteins interacting with the herpes simplex virus HSV-1 and, it is hoped, identify host proteins implicated in propagation of the virus.
David Largaespada and Caitlin Conboy, from the University of Minnesota, USA, will receive a custom short-hairpin RNA (shRNA) sub-library targeting human genes.
They will use this to functionally validate the genes needed for the generation and growth of tumours in colorectal cancer.
Normal colonic epithelium and cancer cell lines will be treated with shRNA, and analysed for alterations in the Wnt/beta-catenin pathway.
Both positive and negative regulators of tumour production should be identified, pointing to candidates for drug targeting.
Alan Ashworth and Christopher Lord from the Institute of Cancer Research in London, UK, win a microRNA (miRNA) library to help optimise drugs for certain types of ovarian and breast cancer.
These drugs, called Parp inhibitors, appear able to shrink many tumours without the side effects of standard chemotherapy.
Christopher Lord commented: “The RNAi screening reagents that Thermo Fisher has developed are central to this approach, and we know that these days the findings from an RNAi screen can be translated rapidly into something that is clinically relevant”.
Xiaofeng Zhou at the University of Illinois, USA, receives a miRNA library to help identify microRNAs contributing to enhanced cancer metastasis – the ability of cells to invade surrounding tissues.
Zhou will concentrate on head and neck cancer lines with different metastatic potential, with the goal of determining whether microRNA deregulation affects this.
“Our RNAi Discovery Grant programme will advance research,” said Mitchell Kennedy, vice president and general manager of Thermo Scientific Genomics.
“These technologies will accelerate discoveries that may lead to treatments for some of the most devastating diseases
