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Molecular medicine involves using knowledge of the molecular basis of disease and new clinical practices, including cell and gene therapies. It includes factors such as antibiotics, enzymes, hormones, and vitamins. Gold nanoparticles have been shown to transport siRNA into human cells, which could be used to “turn off” targeted genes and disable viruses and human genes linked to diseases like cancer. Testing in living bodies is the next step.
Molecular medicine involves applying knowledge about the molecular basis of disease and how to apply new clinical practices. It includes practices, such as interventions at the cellular and/or DNA level, including cell and gene therapies, and the incorporation of new knowledge, such as that which has arisen from the study of post-translational modification of proteins. He often refers to specialties such as genomics, proteomics and bioinformatics.
The small factors that are mostly widely known to be manipulated in the practice of molecular medicine are genes and DNA. There is hope that the study of genomic medicine will enable the knowledge gained to be put into practice in a proactive and personal way, providing individually designed solutions to medical problems. However, this does not represent the full breadth of the field. Other factors involved in molecular medicine include antibiotics, carbohydrates, enzymes, hormones, inorganic polymers, lipids, metals, synthetic organic polymers, viruses, and vitamins.
A recent report on the use of gold nanoparticles helps clarify what molecular medicine is and what it can and may be able to do. Therapy involving gold revolves around the discovery of the capabilities of siRNA (‘short interfering’ RNA), a ribonucleic acid with the ability to ‘turn off’ specifically targeted genes. They do this, as the name suggests, by interfering with the messenger RNA sent by a gene to make a protein.
The problem was that getting the necessary amounts of siRNA into human cells in the first place and also preventing it from being broken down before it could act were insurmountable obstacles. Gold nanoparticles have now been shown to be able to transport siRNA into cultured human cells thanks to work by a team from Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. They found that using gold nanoparticles to deliver the siRNA, rather than introducing it by itself, substantially increased its lifetime. Furthermore, the siRNA supplied with the gold nanoparticles was twice as effective at reducing the activity of the cells to which they were added compared to siRNA alone.
The next step will be to test the technique in living bodies, because what works in a culture doesn’t necessarily translate. The hope is that this kind of technique could be used to “turn off” targeted genes, thereby disabling viruses such as HIV-AIDS, as well as disabling human genes that have been linked by the Human Genome Project to ailments and diseases, such as cancer.
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