By Michael McGinley, Senior Manager of Global Technical Support Department, Phenomenex
Oligonucleotides are a novel class of molecules that offer drug development researchers an enormous array of options in their search to treat a wide array of diseases. Equipped with the ability to bind to complementary sequences through Watson–Crick base pairing, they possess a unique potential to vastly improve the disease state for illnesses that have previously been considered untreatable. For example, oligonucleotides (also known as “oligos”) can target ribonucleic acid (RNA) molecules to treat genetic diseases or viral infections, folding upon themselves and binding to target molecules with incredible specificity.
Oligonucleotides are hardly new. For researchers and laboratory professionals—particularly those working in drug development and pharmaceuticals—oligos have long been a part of a potential toolkit of strategies that may have the potential to cure disease and improve patient outcomes. Synthetic oligonucleotides, in lab use for over 40 years, are now more common and are receiving regulatory approvals, notably in genetic diseases, anti-cancer treatments and metabolic disorders. So why now has this decades-old therapeutic begun to enjoy broader use? And what barriers persist to their widespread use?
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