Hi everyone!
Nice to be back!
Thank you Brad for filling in my last message for me:)

Concerning RNA interference/ repairing.
An intro to this new kind of post-genomique potential
therapeutic (?) method by the French media ( sure, a very
fashionable topic!)
http://fr.news.yahoo.com/020827/108/2q8k6.html
For more:
http://www.medhyg.ch/mh/infos/print.php3?sid=792
(articles are in French. You can have the English web page
translation using the google one line translator
http://www.google.fr/language_tools?hl=fr)

In summary, the RNA interference notion is the story of Pr Richard A.
Jorgensen, a vegetal biologist and his petunias experiment.
Intoducing an inhibitor RNA in the a pink petunia genome, he obtained
a white one. Hence the term of antisens RNA aiming at deactivating a
gene.
But renewing the experience with the same gene as the naturel one,
logic would result in pink + pink = deep purple pink, since pink -
pink =white.
Clearely; in mathematical equation 1-1 =0 so 1+1 = 2
But biology and Nature defy mathematical laws: because pink + pink
gave white petunia too! 1+1 = 0!
Consequently, the same sequence of a known gene of an RNA can silence
the gene instead of over expressing it: that's the mecanism of the
RNA interference. How is it regulated concerns the RNA repairing
function . So that could reactivate as well as deactivated a gene.
( Am I correct Sophareth?)
Experiences were repeated and valid in the animal ( C elegans/
drosophila /Pr Andrew Fire Université Johns Hopkins de Baltimore).
Main applications in vitro tend to try virus ( HIV/ polyomyelitis
virus) cells immunization, with good results it might seems...

FYI , i ve heard of 2 research projects about it and MD subventioned
by the Laval University in Canada but very few infos are available
about them:
http://www.ulaval.ca/vrr/rech/Proj/Int3425.html
1-Ribozyme and antisense RNA as a tool to study myotonic dystrophy/M.
Jack Puymirat
2-Treatment of Duchenne muscular dystrophy : correction of mutated
dystrophin mRNA with ribozymes/M. Jacques-P. Tremblay

Interesting "little" story, isn't it?

Nat