The power of ribozyme technologies: the logical way ahead for molecular medicine and gene therapy?

Since the discovery of naturally occurring non-protein enzymes called ribozymes, which cleave RNAs with high specificity akin to biological re-usable scissors, much progress has been made in understanding their mechanisms of action, improving their stability and effectiveness, and in investigating their clinical usage. Owing to their high specificity, broad range of target selection and action prior to protein translation, ribozymes are considered to be an ideal approach to gene therapy. However, the lack of suitable delivery systems to deliver ribozymes to target cells hampers their clinical development.