1.) How is the method described in the research article better at fighting cancer than current strategies?
Conventional therapies for cancer treatment such as chemotherapy remain a valuable procedure in combatting cancer cells. However, when considering the often severe and varied debilitating side effects, a patient-friendly and even more efficacious procedure should be studied and developed. The use of small conditional RNAs may be able to bridge this gap. This procedure causes minimal, if any collateral damage to normal cells via Hybridization Chain Reactions and mechanical transduction. The small conditional RNA will activate in cancer cells, but remain inactive in normal cells thus minimizing side effects.
2.) Describe the new approach in your own words.
The purpose of this method is to selectively activate in cancer calls. Engineered small conditional RNAs will interact and change conformation in a cell when in the presence of precise cancer markers such as mutant RNA. This conformation is initiated when the RNA binds allosterically to an HCR transducer hairpin. The resulting product is a double stranded RNA. In turn, this activates protein kinase R (which plays a critical role in the antiviral immune response within mammalian cells) and induces cell death. A benefit of using small conditional RNA is the ability to design it to accept different mRNA markers and is used to battle a varied set of cancer cells.
