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news.Alnylam Pharmaceuticals has received a notice of allowance from the US Patent and Trademark Office in response to its patent application that broadly covers methods for preparing small interfering RNAs.
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Based on research by Dr Thomas Tuschl, a founder of Alnylam, the newly allowed claims broadly cover methods of making siRNAs for any target, with or without chemical modifications.
Following a notice of allowance, the final issuance of a patent involves several administrative steps that typically are completed within three months.
RNA interference, or RNAi, is a naturally occurring mechanism within cells for selectively silencing and regulating specific genes. Since many diseases are caused by the inappropriate activity of specific genes, the ability to silence genes selectively through RNAi could provide a new way to treat a wide range of human diseases.
“In my view, this positive evaluation from the US patent office validates the significance of our important findings published in Nature and other scientific journals in 2001,” said Dr Thomas Tuschl, associate professor, The Rockefeller University. “Our published studies launched the broad use of RNAi as a tool for post-genomic research and pointed to a clear opportunity for development of RNAi for therapeutic gene silencing.”