Sylvia Wagner
Fraunhofer Institute for Biomedical Engineering , Germany
Title: The challenge of treating brain disorders/ New routes in treating brain disorders
Biography
Biography: Sylvia Wagner
Abstract
Evolution gave birth to an extremely useful structure: The blood-brain barrier that protects our delicate central nervous system homeostasis by shielding off toxic metabolites, extraneous substances and attacks of pathogens. But biologically valuable does not always mean pharmacologically welcome. The blood-brain barrier does not distinguish between friend and foe and causes many potentially effective brain therapeutics to fail in vivo - not because of a lack of potency, but because they cannot pass this physiological barrier. This dilemma especially comes into focus for the class of neurodegenerative disorders: Demographic changes drive the rapidly growing prevalence for age-related maladies such as Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s disease resulting in horrendous socio-economic burden. Scientists feverishly search for new causal drugs, but even if they showed beneficial effects in vitro, the chance that they pass the blood-brain barrierunhindered is virtually non-existent. Today, we can use the elegant approach of molecular Trojan Horses: the fast-emerging field of nanotechnology offers the possibility to enlarge the pool of substances by packing promising drugs into nanoparticles. By this, we can mask the original physico-chemical properties of the substances and even surface-modify the particles with ligands targeting specific receptors at the blood-brain barrier. The advantages are tempting: Apart from reducing peripheral doses and consequently side effects, drugs can be targeted directly to the brain.
