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The major obstacle to harnessing RNAi for treating cancer is delivering RNAs into disseminated cancer cells.Aptamer-siRNA chimeras (AsiC) are a flexible and effective RNA delivery platform to accomplish this goal.RNA aptamers, structured RNAs that bind with high affinity to a protein, covalently linked to siRNAs, cause knockdown selectively in cells bearing the receptor the aptamer recognizes.Dr.Lieberman will discuss AsiCs that target a receptor highly expressed on epithelial cancer cells and on the tumor-initiating cells (also known as cancer stem cells) within them.Tumor cells selectively take up these RNAs,resulting in rapid and complete regression of difficult-to-treat aggressive breast cancer xenografts.These RNAs also target breast cancer stem cells and block their ability to initiate tumors.These results suggest that tumor-targeting AsiCs could be used to treat epithelial breast tumors and the T-ICs within them, sparing normal cells.