Public release date: 1-Feb-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Vicki Cohn vcohn@liebertpub.com 914-740-2100 x2156 Mary Ann Liebert, Inc./Genetic Engineering News

New Rochelle, NY, January 31, 2012Powerful antisense drugs that target disease-associated genes to block their expression can be used to treat a broad range of diseases. Though antisense therapy has been proven effective, challenges remain in ensuring that the drugs reach their intended targets. Two new methods for detecting and measuring the levels of antisense drugs in cells that could accelerate the development of improved antisense drugs are described in an article in BioResearch Open Access, a bimonthly peer-reviewed open access journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. The article is available on the BioResearch Open Access website.

In the article "Development of Novel Bioanalytical Methods to Determine the Effective Concentrations of Phosphorodiamidate Morpholino Oligomers in Tissues and Cells," Frederick Schnell, Stacy Crumley, Dan Mourich, and P.L. Iversen, from Sarepta Therapeutics and Oregon State University (Corvallis, OR), describe two fast and sensitive methods for detecting a promising type of antisense therapeutic called a phosphorodiamidate morpholine oligomer, or PMO. Using these novel methods they were able to detect PMO delivery to individual cells and quantify how much PMO resides in a particular tissue in the body, such as the lung. For example, the authors describe the measurement of intranasally delivered PMO in lung tissue and, more specifically, in different cell types in the lung. They were able to measure the clearance kinetics of the PMO and determine whether it stayed in the lung tissue.

"The development of novel, rapid PMO detection techniques such as these will advance the field of PMO research in a significant way, providing valid alternatives to the current time-consuming and labor-intensive methods," says Editor-in-Chief Jane Taylor, PhD, MRC Centre for Regenerative Medicine, University of Edinburgh, Scotland.

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About the Journal

BioResearch Open Access is a bimonthly peer-reviewed open access journal that provides a new rapid-publication forum for a broad range of scientific topics including molecular and cellular biology, tissue engineering and biomaterials, bioengineering, regenerative medicine, stem cells, gene therapy, systems biology, genetics, biochemistry, virology, microbiology, and neuroscience. All articles are published within 4 weeks of acceptance and are fully open access and posted on PubMedCentral. All journal content is available on the BioResearch Open Access website.

About the Publisher

Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers is a privately held, fully integrated media company known for establishing authoritative medical and biomedical peer-reviewed journals, including Metabolic Syndrome and Related Disorders, Population Health Management, Diabetes Technology & Therapeutics, and Journal of Women's Health. Its biotechnology trade magazine, Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News (GEN), was the first in its field and is today the industry's most widely read publication worldwide. A complete list of the firm's 70 journals, newsmagazines, and books is available on the Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers website at http://www.liebertpub.com.

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New methods for quantifying antisense drug delivery to target cells and tissues

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