RNA‐based medicine: from molecular mechanisms to therapy

RNA‐based therapeutics have the potential to revolutionize the treatment and prevention of human diseases. While early research faced setbacks, it established the basis for breakthroughs in RNA‐based drug design that culminated in the extraordinarily fast development of mRNA vaccines to combat the COVID‐19 pandemic. We have now reached a pivotal moment where RNA medicines are poised to make a broad impact in the clinic. In this review, we present an overview of different RNA‐based strategies to generate novel therapeutics, including antisense and RNAi‐based mechanisms, mRNA‐based approaches, and CRISPR‐Cas‐mediated genome editing. Using three rare genetic diseases as examples, we highlight the opportunities, but also the challenges to wide‐ranging applications of this class of drugs.