美国国家环境卫生研究中心（NIEHS, National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences）正在进行一项为期三年、投资达300万美元的研究项目，这项研究旨在确定特定基因促进与环境相关的疾病发展的机制。NIEHS将会构建一个新的RNAi文库，用于帮助战胜疾病。
RNAi技术能够关闭特定的基因，因此使得研究人员能够进一步了解有关基因影响细胞的过程。知道了一个基因如何对一种压力做出反应，就能够使研究人员从中获得更多的有关化合物和毒素如何影响人类健康的信息。这项技术使我们有了一个了解环境反应基因的强大的工具箱。
NIEHS的这项研究与其它研究的不同之处在于它将集中研究与环境健康和毒理学有关的基因。研究人员将能够更快速地确定基因功能并知道对药物、化合物和其它环境压力因子产生相反作用基因。RNAi技术是一种快速且强大的比传统、耗时的方法更有效地完成这个研究目标（找出疾病途径）的工具。
长期以来，研究人员一直在寻找能够关闭一种基因对细胞影响的方法。通过从细胞程序中移除一个遗传步骤并观察产生的后果，研究人员能深入了解对压力作出反应的重要的细胞反应并最终促进公共健康水平的提高。
建立的RNAi库将对Toxicogenomics国家研究中心的研究机构开发。而且，这些资料也将成为NIEHS的科学资源的一个部分。通过资源共享，这项研究将使整个科学界从中受益。
原文：
NIEHS to Develop New RNAi Library to Help Fight Disease
The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences is undertaking a $3 million, three-year effort to see how specific genes might contribute to environmentally-related disease. NIEHS will develop a new RNAi library to help fight disease through its National Center for Toxicogenomics. RNAi, or RNA interference, is a new technology which silences specific genes.
RNAi technology "turns off" specific genes so scientists can learn more about how the genes influence the cell. Knowing how a gene responds to a stress allows scientists to gain a more comprehensive understanding of how chemicals and toxins can undermine our health.
"This new technology gives us a stronger tool box for understanding the environmental response genes," said Dr. Kenneth Olden, NIEHS Director. "By focusing on the environmental response genes, we're building a library of RNAi molecules that'll help us fight diseases."
The NIEHS project differs from what others are doing by focusing on genes related to environmental health and toxicology. Researchers will be able to more rapidly determine gene function and see which genes are responsible for adverse responses to drugs, chemicals, or other environmental stressors.
"It's a rapid and powerful new tool to augment more traditional and time-consuming methods to accomplish our goal of verifying disease pathways,"Olden added. "We're very pleased to carry out this important work that will benefit the entire scientific community by making the information available to the public."
"For a long time, scientists have looked for methods that turn off a gene's influence on the cell which helps us understand the specific gene function," said Olden. "By removing a genetic step from a cellular program and seeing what happens, we gain insight into important cellular responses to stress and ultimately to public health issues like the effects of exposures to environmental toxicants."
The library will be a resource available to the scientific community administered by the National Center for Toxicogenomics. The data will become part of scientific resources offered by NIEHS to the public.
A North Carolina-based biotechnology company, Icoria, will carry out the three-year contract, which is the first phase of the NIEHS RNAi initiative.
Part of the National Institutes of Health, NIEHS researches the effects of the environment on human health.
