Cequent Pharmaceuticals' Johannes Fruehauf, MD, Ph.D., to be Featured Speaker at RNAi World Congress in Boston - M...( CAMBRIDGE Mass. April 30 /- Ceque...),Health

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., April 30 /PRNewswire/ -- Cequent Pharmaceuticals, a pioneer in the development of novel products to deliver RNAi-based treatments to prevent and treat human disease, announced that its Vice President of Research, Johannes Fruehauf, MD, Ph.D., is slated to speak at the RNAi World Congress meeting in Boston. His presentation, "Treatment of Gastrointestinal Targets using RNA Interference," is scheduled for 4:25 pm on Friday, May 2, at the Hilton Boston Logan Airport. Dr. Fruehauf is co-inventor of Cequent's proprietary TransKingdom RNA interference (tkRNAi(TM)) technology, designed to solve one of the key challenges to RNAi therapeutics -- delivery of the RNAi into the cell.

Cequent's goal with its first clinical candidate is to prevent polyp formation in patients with a high risk of developing colon cancer. In his talk, Dr. Fruehauf will give an overview of the company's preclinical-development program for the therapeutic, presenting efficacy data in mouse models and data on a major monkey toxicology study currently under way. The latter is the first study evaluating the safety and efficacy of tkRNAi in a non-human primate model -- an important step for Cequent in the development of tkRNAi-based drugs for human disease. In addition, Dr. Fruehauf will introduce Cequent's programs for inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and human Papilloma virus (HPV), which targets cervical cancer.

Dr. Fruehauf's participation in the RNAi World Congress follows Cequent presentations at two other high-profile conferences. In March, Dr. Fruehauf introduced tkRNAi and its application in cancer prevention targeting beta-catenin at the Keystone Symposium on RNAi, MicroRNA, and Non-Coding RNA in Whistler, British Columbia. Cequent's Associate Director of RNAi Research, Jens Harborth, Ph.D., also presented at the conference, discussing the company's unique algorithm of developing tkRNAi target sequences, which are active across species. This approach allows
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