The Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB) is organising a two day symposium on 'RNAi and microRNA in Development and Health' at Hyderabad from February 23-24, 2006. It will be of interest to scientists working in this field, biotechnologists, clinician and those engaged in drug discovery.

The symposium will focus on transcriptional gene silencing, post transcriptional gene silencing, RNA interference, gene silencing in micro-organisms, RNAi in gene regulation, RNAi in infectious diseases, RNAi in viral resistance and microRNA and its role in gene regulation.

RNAi is a remarkable process in which a double-stranded RNA duplex silences a homologous gene. First observed in plants, where it was perceived to be like an immune response in the animal world, against viral pathogens, it is now known to be a multi-faceted phenomenon highly conserved during evolution.

RNAi is involved, amongst others, in chromatin remodelling such as heterochromatin formation, epigenetic dynamics, repression of transposable elements and DNA methylation. It has proved to be a powerful tool for studying gene function because any gene can be silenced at any specific tissue at a period of time.

The major components of the RNAi system are small interfering RNA (siRNA) or microRNA (miRNA). As a gene silencing technique, RNAi has many advantages over creating knockouts or transgenic animals, and over the use of antisense oligonucleotides; it is faster and less laborious than the former and is a hundred-fold more effective than the latter. It has, therefore, enormous potential therapeutic and commercial value. There are a number of factors not all of which have been fully identified or adequately studied for successful use of RNAi.