Can we switch off diseases?

** We’ve paused the Works in Progress podcast feed, so head over to our dedicated Hard Drugs podcast feed to listen to future episodes, if you hadn’t subscribed there already! https://harddrugs.worksinprogress.co/ ** What if treating diseases was as simple as telling your cells to stop making a harmful protein? That’s the premise of siRNA, a technology that silences genes without changing DNA. Just a single dose of siRNA can last for months. Better, it can be reprogrammed to silence a different gene or mutation by simply switching its sequence.In this episode, Jacob and Saloni explore why it took so long for siRNA to be turned into drugs, why most siRNA drugs so far have targeted liver diseases, and whether they could eventually be used to treat many diseases, from infections to heart disease to rare diseases to cancers.Hard Drugs is a podcast from Works in Progress about medical innovation presented by Saloni Dattani and Jacob Trefethen. You can watch or listen on YouTube, Spotify, or Apple Podcasts.Chapters: Click here to read the episode transcript. Saloni’s substack newsletter: https://www.scientificdiscovery.dev/Jacob’s blog: https://blog.jacobtrefethen.com/  Acknowledgements:Graham Bessellieu, video editorAbhishaike Mahajan, cover artAtalanta Arden-Miller, art directionDavid Hackett, composer ArticlesJacob Witten (2026). The kill switch for harmful genes. Works in Progress. https://worksinprogress.co/issue/the-kill-switch-for-harmful-genes/ Virginie Baylot et al. (2024) Between hope and reality: treatment of genetic diseases through nucleic acid-based drugs. https://www.nature.com/articles/s42003-024-06121-9Chokwassanasakulkit et al. (2024) SiRNAs as antiviral drugs – Current status, therapeutic potential and challenges. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.antiviral.2024.106024 Antonio Fontanellas et al. (2025) RNA-based therapies in liver metabolic diseases. https://doi.org/10.1136/gutjnl-2023-331742