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Biotech / Medical : Millennium Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (MLNM) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Icebrg who wrote (1929)	10/30/2003 3:08:24 PM
From: bob zagorin	Respond to of 3044

Silencing A Parkinson's Gene Matthew Herper, 10.30.03, 2:30 PM ET NEW YORK - In tomorrow's issue of the journal Science, researchers at the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Fla., write that overactivity of a particular gene may cause Parkinson's disease. Tiny Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, which is trying to develop a laboratory technology that silences genes into actual drugs, says it will collaborate with the Mayo Clinic group to develop medicines that affect the gene, alpha-synuclein. "This collaboration with Alnylam creates the possibility of previously unimagined therapeutic advances for Parkinson's disease patients," said Matthew Farrer, one of the Mayo Clinic researchers, in a prepared statement released by Cambridge, Mass.-based Alnylam. Alnylam is one of the leading companies in the field of RNA interference. This technology, dubbed RNAi, makes use of a natural process in which tiny bits of the genetic messenger RNA keep genes, encoded in DNA, from being used by the body. The company's board, management team and founders include big names from biotech Millennium Pharmaceuticals (nasdaq: MLNM - news - people ), which is also based in Cambridge, Mass. A Mayo Clinic researcher who worked on the Science paper is the brother of Alnylam's chief executive, John Maraganore. Additionally, the company is working with Whitehouse Station, N.J.-based Merck (nyse: MRK - news - people ) to use its RNAi technology to develop new therapeutics as well as methods of studying genes in lab animals. Very few diseases have been announced as targets for RNAi therapeutics. RNAi is very difficult to get into the body, and scientists are still working on ways to make it an effective drug. One of Alnylam's competitors, Boulder, Colo.-based Sirna Therapeutics (nasdaq: RNAI - news - people ), has presented promising data using its RNAi technology to treat macular degeneration in lab animals. The approach works by targeting a similar pathway to that hit by Genentech's (nyse: DNA - news - people ) experimental drug Lucentis, but at a genetic level.