Multifocal Avian Influenza (H5N1) Outbreak

During March 2006, an outbreak of highly pathogenic avian influenza (H5N1) occurred in multiple poultry farms in Israel. The epidemiologic investigation and review of outbreak mitigation efforts uncovered gaps in planning for and containing the outbreak, thus affording valuable lessons applicable to other countries in similar settings

Chemosensitization of cancer cells by siRNA using targeted nanogel delivery

© 2010 Dickerson et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. The electronic version of this article is the complete one and can be found online at: http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2407/10/10DOI: 10.1186/1471-2407-10-10Background. Chemoresistance is a major obstacle in cancer treatment. Targeted therapies that enhance cancer cell sensitivity to chemotherapeutic agents have the potential to increase drug efficacy while reducing toxic effects on untargeted cells. Targeted cancer therapy by RNA interference (RNAi) is a relatively new approach that can be used to reversibly silence genes in vivo by selectively targeting genes such as the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR), which has been shown to increase the sensitivity of cancer cells to taxane chemotherapy. However, delivery represents the main hurdle for the broad development of RNAi therapeutics. Methods. We report here the use of core/shell hydrogel nanoparticles (nanogels) functionalized with peptides that specially target the EphA2 receptor to deliver small interfering RNAs (siRNAs) targeting EGFR. Expression of EGFR was determined by immunoblotting, and the effect of decreased EGFR expression on chemosensitization of ovarian cancer cells after siRNA delivery was investigated. Results. Treatment of EphA2 positive Hey cells with siRNA-loaded, peptide-targeted nanogels decreased EGFR expression levels and significantly increased the sensitivity of this cell line to docetaxel (P 0.05)