Gene therapy conventionally utilizes virus to correct diseased genes for eliminating cancer, but safety risks and off-target effects of viral method largely limit their clinical translation.

Therefore, CUHK team combined RNA interference technology and ultrasound microbubble system to form a novel virus-free gene therapy. The invention specifically delivers gene silencing particles into tumor without using any virus. It can serve as a rapid evaluating platform for therapeutic efficiency of new gene targets preclinically, as well as development to be a safe anticancer therapy clinically.

 

基因療法能利用病毒修改癌變基因，但潛在臨床安全風險。因此，中大研究團隊揉合了RNA干擾技術及超聲微泡系統，成功發明出一種全新非病毒方式的抗癌基因治療。它能夠精準地靶向癌龕，有效抑制病變基因表達，過程毋須病毒。本技術能於臨床前評估抗癌效率，亦可發展成安全的臨床基因治療。