Prof Peter Leedman presents recent results at FNA meeting

Prof Peter Leedman presented the latest promising results of mRx-7 at the Functional Nucleic Acid (FNA) Meeting, held at Murdoch University in Perth, Western Australia on November 22. The meeting featured international, interstate and local invited speakers to present their research on the recent advances in essentially redesigning the building blocks of life for diagnostic and therapeutic applications and improving the understanding of biology.

Prof Peter Leedman, Director of MiReven Pty Ltd, said:

Given the recent advances in siRNA targeted delivery, including FDA approval of the first RNAi therapeutic, microRNA therapeutics can “piggyback” on siRNA and take advantage of the technology to stabilize the drug and specifically deliver the treatment to the liver.

This news was well received by the audience, as many recognise the clear advantage that second generation chemistry has provided to the improve stability of RNA-based therapeutics and techniques allowing delivery of cargo-pay loads to specific tissues and cell types.

With the many exciting advances presented at the two day conference, whether these approaches were inspired by nature or involved novel synthetic modifications to each and every component of these building blocks, evidence is emerging that we are becoming more savvy at targeted drug delivery, improving the stability of these compounds and understanding/reducing toxicity and immune reactions associated with these treatments.