Mirna Therapeutics said this week that it has received a notice that the US Patent and Trademark Office has allowed claims within a patent application related to the therapeutic use of microRNA-34a.
According to the company, miR-34a is a potent tumor suppressor, and the patent application describes methods of reducing cancer cell viability by introducing the non-coding RNA into cancerous T cells or lung, prostate, or skin cancer cells.
Mirna is currently developing a miR-34a mimic that it expects to move into phase I testing next year (GSN 1/20/2011).