RNA Interference: Application to Drug Discovery and Challenges to Pharmaceutical Development provides a general overview of this rapidly emerging field, with a strong emphasis on issues and aspects that are important to a drug development team. The first part covers more general background of RNA interference and its application in drug discovery. In the second part, the book addresses siRNA (small interfering RNA), a pharmaceutically potent form, and its use and delivery in therapeutics along with manufacturing and delivery aspects.

CONTRIBUTORS.
PREFACE.

FOREWORD.

I. Biology of RNA Interference.

1 RNA Interference: What is it? (James A. Birchler).

2 Nucleic Acids as Regulatory Molecules (Faqing Huang, C. J. Yu, and Yanlin Guo).

3 Use of siRNA Oligonucleotides to Study Gene Function (Kristin A. Wiederholt and Adam N. Harris).

4 Genome Scanning by RNA Interference (Roderick L. Beijersbergen and Oliver C. Steinbach).

II Development of siRNA for Therapeutic Applications.

5 Discovery of New siRNA Delivery Agents (Paul H. Johnson, Diane Frank, Kunyuan Cui, Roger Adami, Harry Wang, Michael Houston, and Steven C. Quay).

6 siRNA Delivery Vehicles (Aliasger K. Salem and Mark A. Behlke).

7 Interferon, Cytokine Induction and Other Potential In Vivo Toxicities (Adam Judge, Marjorie Robbins, and Ian MacLachlan).

8 Application of RNA Interference to Viral Diseases (Ralph A. Tripp and Stephen Mark Tompkins).

Index.