Patent ID: 8268986

Claim:
A chemically modified short interfering nucleic acid molecule that mediates RNA interference against a human target RNA sequence, comprising: a) a sense strand and an antisense strand, where the antisense strand is complementary to the human target RNA sequence; b) each strand of the nucleic acid molecule is independently 18 to 24 nucleotides in length; c) the sense strand comprises 10 or more 2′-deoxy, 2′-O-methyl, 2′-deoxy-2′-fluoro and/or universal base modified nucleotides; d) the antisense strand comprises 10 or more 2′-deoxy, 2′-O-methyl, 2′-deoxy-2′-fluoro and/or universal base modified nucleotides; and e) 10 or more pyrimidine nucleotides of the sense and/or antisense strand are chemically modified with 2′-deoxy, 2′-O-methyl, and/or 2′-deoxy-2′-fluoro nucleotides.