CAMBRIDGE, Mass. & CARLSBAD, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Regulus Therapeutics LLC, a joint venture between Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (Nasdaq: ALNY) and Isis Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (Nasdaq: ISIS) formed to discover, develop, and commercialize microRNA-based therapeutics, announced today the publication of new research findings in the journal Cancer Cell demonstrating a key role of microRNAs in regulating angiogenesis pathways in cancer, specifically in malignant brain tumors. Angiogenesis is a physiological process required for the growth and spread of many cancers and the new findings demonstrated that miR-296 is a significant regulator of this pathway. Further, targeting miR-296 with anti-miR-296 antisense oligonucleotides (also called “antagomirs”) blocked angiogenesis in tumor xenograft models in mice. This new research was led by Thomas Würdinger affiliated with Xandra O. Breakefield’s laboratory at Massachusetts General Hospital and VU Medical Center in Amsterdam, working in collaboration with researchers from Regulus, Anna M. Krichevsky’s laboratory at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and Ludwig-Maximilians-University in Munich.
