Grant: Collaborative Health Research Projects (NSERC partnered)

A new class of drugs has been under development for the past decade, based on RNA interference, a mechanism of gene regulation whose discovery was awarded the Nobel prize in 2006. The drugs are short sequences of RNA, the genetic material that drives protein expression in all cells. It is possible to shut down the expression of pathological proteins using this mechanism by introducing RNA molecules into cells. Over the past decade the scientific and pharmaceutical community have recognised that the main limitation of making these drugs work is the lack of effective delivery systems. Our team has been working in this area of RNA delivery for several years and have discovered and published new systems that can deliver RNA molecules to cells using a polymer of glucosamine called chitosan. We previously discovered and developed a product for cartilage repair using this polymer and have now leveraged our ability to produce, modify and characterise these polymers to identify specific entities that are promising for RNA delivery. We have data in animal studies that suggest they may be useful for treating Atherosclerosis. This project aims to produce specific compositions of chitosan and RNA that can treat Atherosclerosis and Cancer based on silencing genes that are proven therapeutic targets. By the end of the project we expect to identify new therapeutic approaches which could be used in people to treat these diseases.