A WAY of targeting and killing tumour cells with specific mutations could lead to new treatments for many cancers.
The method is a twist on the “antisense” treatments already being tested against cancer. Here, the idea is to turn off a gene by introducing antisense RNA strands that bind to and block the mRNA blueprints for making the protein.
The problem is that turning off a gene doesn’t always kill cancer cells. But when antisense RNA binds to form double-stranded segments over 30 base pairs long, it triggers a viral defence mechanism that results in cell suicide. Alexander Levitzki at…
