Chemical Biology - synthesizing/designing siRNA I was reading an article on siRNA, and from what I read it sounded like we can edit genes using siRNA. First, did I even interpret this correctly? Second, I read that siRNA was being used to create drugs to help correct mutations. Does this mean that they could also give positive mutations to people? Finally, how does the structure of siRNA differ from that of normal RNA?
At this time, it it possible to completely chemically synthesize oligonucleotides (DNA/RNA) between 30-50 base pairs. siRNAs are a class of RNAs that, as the name suggests, bind to other RNAs in a sequence specific manner. Specifically, siRNAs preferentially target mRNAs, which blocks translation of those mRNAs into proteins. This regulation of gene expression has absolutely nothing to do with "creating genes for a human being".