When it comes to major advances in science, they often come in waves, as the discoveries in one edge of science tend to open into wings of other research. The same can be said for technological breakthroughs, and certainly this can be the case for Alzheimer’s Disease research. The reason that biOasis is concerned primarily with how p97 can travel through the blood brain barrier is because this has wide-ranging possibilities beyond Alzheimer’s Disease. The ability to transport medication across the blood brain barrier has implications for all types of neurological conditions beyond those of dementia.
Alzheimer’s remains a focal point of current blood brain barrier research because it is a growing epidemic. Additionally – and significantly – p97, or melanotransferrin, also has the potential for being a biomarker for Alzheimer’s Disease. In other words, it is a possible way for doctor’s to test for Alzheimer’s specifically. So while p97 has potential uses beyond Alzheimer’s Disease, research is centered around AD because that is where it can have the greatest impact.
But what about other diseases? For instance, there is research being done regarding the blood brain barrier and certain cancers:
Getting drugs into the brain has always been a major challenge in treating tumors and other neurological diseases, because the blood-brain barrier, a natural defense system, keeps many drugs out. The study that Mr. Sugrue is in, at New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell, combines old technologies in a new way to open the barrier and deliver extraordinarily high doses of Avastin straight to these deadly tumors — without soaking the rest of the brain in the drug and exposing it to side effects.
The goal is to find better ways to treat glioblastomas. But the technique might also be useful for brain metastases, meaning cancer that has spread from other parts of the body, like the breasts or lungs — something that occurs in about 100,000 people a year in the United States. The same procedure could also deliver other drugs and might eventually be used to treat neurological disorders like multiple sclerosis or Parkinson’s disease, if suitable therapies are developed.
This underscores just how important blood brain barrier research is to a growing list of conditions. Imagine, a new medical development that could aid both cancer and Alzheimer’s Disease! Of course, biOasis isn’t claiming to be finding the cure for cancer, but if p97 can be effective to safely administer medication to Alzheimer’s patients, it is possible this same method could be used for cancer-fighting medication.
If you read further in the linked article, this is one of the current developments in trying to bypass the brain’s wall of defense:
The new technique refines the art of opening the barrier: it uses microcatheters — fine, highly flexible tubes that are inserted into an artery in the groin and then threaded up into tiny blood vessels nearly anywhere in the brain — to spray chemotherapy directly onto tumors or areas from which they have been removed. The catheters are normally used to deliver clot-dissolving drugs to the brain to treat strokes.
Understandably, this is not ideal. The purpose of much research into the blood brain barrier is to avoid exactly this scenario: forceful entry into the brain, rather than “crossing the barrier” through medication. The latter could potentially hold down costs as well as be safer – which is the overall goal. A pharmaceutical-based system would be much easier to administer the world over, as people would not necessarily have to have access to an advanced medical facility. While this new microcatheter development is promising, it is hopefully only a temporary alternative until a pharmaceutical-based solution is discovered.
Other Blood Brain Barrier Research
A recent breakthrough with Down’s Syndrome used an innovative way to administer the drug to mice.
Dr. Salehi says his main challenge was just delivering the drug. Norepinephrine does not normally cross the blood-brain barrier, so the doctors had to use a pro-drug which could slip through to actually bear the chemical into the brain.
But the pro-drug carried its own dangers: norepinephrine is part of the body’s flight-or-flight response, triggered by stress, and the doctors didn’t want it released outside the brain where it could tax the heart and cardiovascular system.
The solution was to introduce the pro-drug with carbidopa, a drug that prevents the conversion of the pro-drug into norepinephrine, but which can’t itself cross the blood-brain barrier.
This method is specific to this type of drug, but it again underscores the necessity for other medications to cross the BBB threshold. Additionally challenging, as this research points out, is what the medication does once the blood brain barrier is crossed. The problem with many new treatments aimed at Alzheimer’s is that the side effects outweigh the benefits. Crossing the blood brain barrier is only half the equation, as the drug needs to be safe and effective once it enters the brain, but until the drug is even able to cross the BBB, researchers will not be able to test new therapies and enhance their safety and effectiveness.
