US Patent 7482332 - Telomere encoding synthetic DNA nanocircles

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/7482332.html

Telomeres are regions of DNA having some relationship to lifespan of cells and cancer. This patent from Stanford university teaches a nucleic acid "nanocircle" useful to cancer treatment based on a telomere repeat sequence. Claim 1 reads:

1. An isolated nucleic acid nanocircle consisting of an integral number of a telomere repeat sequence, wherein the length of the nanocircle is 30 nucleotides, 36 nucleotides, 42 nucleotides, 48 nucleotides, 54 nucleotides, 60 nucleotides, 66 nucleotides, 72 nucleotides, or 78 nucleotides.