Editor's Note: This information is embargoed for release on Dec. 28, 1999, at 3 p.m. EST

The technique may someday be used in treating inherited disease.

Researchers at Jefferson Medical College have used an innovative "gene repair" technique to genetically change white albino mice hairs to black. The technique has not only turned hairs black, but has showed that such changes are stable and long lasting in skin cells.

The work holds promise as a potential treatment for some hereditary diseases by correcting the genetic mutation from which they arise.

Kyonggeun Yoon, Ph.D., associate professor of dermatology and cutaneous biology and biochemistry and molecular pharmacology at Jefferson Medical College of Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia and postdoctoral fellow Vitali Alexeev, Ph.D., in collaboration with a team of scientists at the University of Pennsylvania, corrected a single alteration in the gene that controls skin color in albino mice cells.

The scientists, in what they dub "localized gene therapy," delivered a small oligonucleotide - DNA interspersed with small amounts of RNA - to the melanocytes, or skin color-producing cells. The "oligo" triggers the actual gene repair process. They both injected the oligonucleotide and applied it topically.

The researchers' work appears in the January issue of the journal Nature Biotechnology.

"We showed that it's possible to change the hair color in a live animal, and not just in the color-producing cells cultured in a test tube," says Dr. Alexeev, noting that only a few tiny hairs were blackened and were not visible without a microscope. Last year, Dr. Yoon and Dr. Alexeev reported that, using this gene repair technique, they could change mouse melanocytes from white to black in the test tube.

The scientists would like to continue to refine their technique. "We have a lot to improve on, such as oligonucleotide delivery to the melanocyt
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Contact: Steven Benowitz
steven.benowitz@mail.tju.edu
215-955-5291
Thomas Jefferson University
27-Dec-1999