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Nanovector delivery of siRNA for cancer therapy

Cancer Gene Therapy volume 19, pages 367–373 (2012)Cite this article

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Abstract

RNA interference holds the promise to knock down expression of every cancer gene. Both academic laboratories and pharmaceutical companies have committed heavily on manpower and financial resources to develop small interfering RNA (siRNA) cancer therapeutics over the last decade. Although significant advances have been made in the design of siRNA therapeutics and mechanism of action on cancer cell killing, there are still many hurdles to overcome including effective delivery of therapeutics in vivo. Nanotechnology has had an important role in the development of delivery vectors so far. This article summarizes current nanovectors for siRNA delivery, discusses technical challenges in overcoming biological barriers, and introduces the multistage vector system for tumor-specific delivery.

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Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge financial support from the following sources: Department of Defense Breast Cancer Research Program W81XWH-09-1-0212 and NIH R01CA128797, R33CA122864, U54CA143837, U54CA151668, and the Ernest Cockrell Jr Distinguished Endowed Chair.

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  1. The Methodist Hospital Research Institute, Houston, TX, USA

    H Shen, T Sun & M Ferrari

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  1. H Shen
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  2. T Sun
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Correspondence to M Ferrari.

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Competing interests

M Ferrari is the founding scientist and a member of the Board of Directors of Leonardo Biosystems, a member of Board of Directors of ArrowHead Research Corporation, and hereby discloses potential financial interests in the companies. The other authors disclosed no potential conflicts of interest.

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Shen, H., Sun, T. & Ferrari, M. Nanovector delivery of siRNA for cancer therapy. Cancer Gene Ther 19, 367–373 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/cgt.2012.22

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