New Tech Could Revolutionize Treatments for Brain Diseases

After a quarter of a century of dedicated work, researchers have created an innovative molecular transport system that can penetrate the blood-brain barrier. This system allows drugs to enter the brains of patients suffering from cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, and many other brain disorders efficiently.

“It took many years of research work to figure out how to make a safe brain shuttle,” says Azad Bonni, who heads neuroscience research and development at the Swiss pharmaceutical company Roche, “but things are only now really taking off.”

Such shuttles take advantage of natural transport systems in the brain to help drugs slip through the tightly joined cells that make up the blood-brain barrier. Rare diseases like Hunter syndrome, cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, and Parkinson’s disease could all benefit from such a revolutionary molecular transport system since less than 0.1% of the intravenous dose of traditional therapies gets through the blood-brain barrier. “With so little antibody getting into the brain, high doses have to be given — a waste of material, and a likely source of side effects that are occasionally serious,” explains neurobiologist Dag Sehlin at Uppsala University.