Israeli researchers develop RNA-based drug to destroy cancer cells in bone marrow

Israeli researchers managed to destroy myeloma blood cancer cells using an RNA-based drug delivered to the cells by targeted lipid nanoparticles.

Tel Aviv University said in a statement on Sunday evening.

Adopting this method for the world’s first time, researchers destroyed 90 per cent of the multiple myeloma blood cancer cells under laboratory conditions.

According to the statement, about 60 per cent of human tissues are taken from patients at Rabin Medical Centre of Israel.

In the research whose results were published in the leading journal Advanced Science, the researchers developed lipid-based nanoparticles similar to those used in the COVID-19 vaccine.

It contained RNA molecules that silenced the gene CKAP5, and encoding cytoskeleton-associated protein five.

With this protein’s inhibition, the cancer cell was unable to divide, thus essentially getting killed.

To avoid damaging noncancerous cells, the nanoparticles were coated with antibodies that guided them specifically to the cancer cells inside the bone marrow.

The statement explained that multiple myeloma is a blood cancer usually found in older populations.

Most blood cancers appeared in the blood stream or lymph nodes and spread from there to the rest of the body.

It multiple myeloma cells appeared and formed tumors inside the bone marrow and were therefore,  very hard to reach.

There were many possible treatments for this disease but after a certain period of improvement, most patients develop resistance to the therapy and the disease relapsed even more aggressively.

Therefore, there is a constant need to develop new treatments for multiple myeloma.

RNA-based therapy had a great advantage in this case because it could be developed very quickly.

By simply changing the RNA molecule, a different gene could be silenced each time, thereby tailoring the treatment to the progression of the disease and to the individual patient,  the statement said.

The drug delivery system developed in the study was the first that specifically targeted cancer cells inside the bone marrow.

It also the first to show that silencing the expression of CKAP5 gene could be used to kill blood cancer cells, opening a new world for selective delivery of RNA medications.

The statement quoted researchers as saying that vaccines for cancer tumors and diseases originated in the bone marrow.

The study was conducted by a group of researchers from Tel Aviv University and Rabin Medical Centre. (Xinhua/NAN)