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Message: <blockquote data-quote="tomBitonti" data-source="post: 6731285" data-attributes="member: 13107">A big problem with targeting agents against tumors is that they are mostly the same as normal cells.  The difference between a normal cell and a tumor cell can be a very small thing.That means that a lethal agent can very easily fail to distinguish tumor cells from normal cells.  How does the RNA binding agent obtain an RNA sequence which is specific enough to not kill a lot of normal cells?If such an agent can be made, wouldn't it be useful for assassinations?  Take a DNA swab, surreptitiously (or not) and use it to target one person.If the proposed agent were as promising as it sounds, I'd think there would be a *lot* of funds available.  (And, I'd expect a lot of labs to be pursuing the idea: Why is only this one guy doing research in this area?)And four years seems too short of a time, and $500,000 a year too little money to bring a drug to market.  There would need to be a bunch of trials, which seem likely to cost a heck of a lot more than $500K / year for four years.  That seems like it would cover basic research, and barely that.Thx!TomB</blockquote>