OSI and Cold Spring Harbor in RNAi research agreement

OSI Pharmaceuticals has entered into a research agreement with Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) to use CSHL's RNAi technology platform in its cancer drug discovery programmes. The research collaboration employs this new technology to allow scientists to rapidly turn off genes of interest in cancer cells and measure the consequences on cancer cell growth and survival. It is anticipated that the approach will allow OSI to validate rapidly new targets for anticancer drug discovery. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

RNAi refers to the use of short segments of double-stranded RNA, which can block or reduce gene expression of specific protein products. By 'knocking down' specific cancer-related genes, OSI's scientists can validate therapeutic targets before embarking on longer-term and more costly drug research.

Through its internal research efforts, OSI has identified 1,500 candidate genes thought to be important in the process by which normal cells are converted into tumour cells. The CSHL collaboration now allows OSI to rapidly determine which of these targets will have greatest potential for drug discovery.

Furthermore, RNAi can be used to survey existing tumour cell lines in order to profile tissue and tumour response to intervention at an individual gene target that may serve to guide the initial clinical evaluation of new targeted anticancer compounds.

Comparison of RNAi and lead compound effects on tumour line phenotype may also help to define potentially unknown pharmacological activities and improve understanding of the multi-step processes by which cancers arise.