A dramatic new study published in the most recent issue of Nature questions some of the mechanisms underlying a new class of drugs based on Nobel Prize-winning work designed to fight diseases ranging from macular degeneration to diabetes.

Dr. Jayakrishna Ambati, a University of Kentucky researcher and the paper’s senior author, has for years been investigating gene silencing, a 1998 discovery that won a Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in unusually quick fashion in 2006.

While the prize-winning discovery remains important, the findings made by Ambati’s lab show the mechanisms behind it are not as scientists once believed. In fact, Ambati’s work imparts the need for caution in current clinical trials using the technology, as it may have potentially harmful effects on subjects. … Continue Reading »