The University of Massachusetts Medical School (UMMS) in Worcester has been granted European Patent EP 1,309,726 in the Tuschl I patent series by the European Patent Office (EPO). The newly granted patent is based on one of the earliest applications in a UMMS portfolio covering the research of Phillip D. Zamore, PhD, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator and the Gretchen Stone Cook chair of biomedical sciences and professor of biochemistry and molecular pharmacology at UMMS. The patent grant extends the scope and breadth of UMMS’s fundamental IP estate, which comprises numerous issued or granted patents and many pending patent applications that together broadly cover RNAi therapeutics, including small interfering RNAs, or siRNAs — the molecules that mediate RNAi. The patent, “RNA sequence-specific mediators of RNA interference,” is considered the fundamental patent on siRNAs, describing the design and use of duplex RNAs that are too short to induce an interferon response, thereby allowing RNA interference in mammalian cells. The patent is based on a discovery by Zamore; Thomas Tuschl, PhD, now of Rockefeller University; Nobel Laureate Phillip A. Sharp, PhD, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; and David P. Bartel, PhD, of the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research.<\/p>\n
The Tuschl I patent consists of 19 claims broadly covering RNAi methods, including methods of reducing the expression of a gene — including those of mammalian or viral origin — with double-stranded RNA (dsRNAs) between 21 and 23 nucleotides in length. The patent also includes claims covering methods of examining the function of a gene, as well as the use of both unmodified and chemically modified dsRNAs. “The issuance of this patent is an important step in securing the pathway to the clinic for siRNA-based therapeutics,” says Terence R. Flotte, MD, dean, provost, and executive deputy chancellor of UMMS. “Appropriate patent protection will encourage future investment in innovative siRNA therapies for neurodegenerative diseases, cancer, infectious diseases, and other conditions for which current therapies are inadequate.”<\/p>\n