SCIENCE OF RNAi

Overview

RNA interference (RNAi) is a natural cellular process of gene silencing that occurs in almost all organisms. One type of RNAi is siRNA which relies upon short double-stranded RNA (< 30 base pairs) that induce sequence-specific silencing of target disease genes through specific degradation of the mRNA responsible for protein synthesis.

The result of this process is the silencing or shutting down of a target gene protein product. In a therapeutic setting, siRNAs are delivered to target cells to halt the production of disease-causing proteins.

To learn more about the science of RNAi, please visit the following sites dedicated to this topic: