Alzheimer\u2019s disease, brain tumours, schizophrenia, strokes, epilepsy, dementia, various kinds of ataxia…A great many diseases affect the central nervous system, and their treatment calls for drugs that target the brain. A complete understanding of the biology of the compact blood-brain barrier protecting this organ, which is formed by so many capillaries that if they were to be placed end to end they would stretch 600 kilometers, and the search for new approaches to overcome this obstacle are among the most promising strategies to find new treatments using drugs that have therapeutic potential but that are unable to cross this barrier unaided.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have advanced enough to start the first clinical trials with shuttles that can cross this barrier, a biological structure responsible for the low success rates of new treatments,\u201d explains\u00a0Ernest Giralt, from IRB Barcelona\u00a0and one of few experts in shuttle research.\u00a0Giralt, who is also a Senior Professor at the University of Barcelona, together with the Japanese scientists\u00a0Tetsuya Terasaki,\u00a0from the University of Tohoku, is co-organising this Barcelona Biomed Conference.<\/p>\n
\nTwo main strategies: antibodies and peptides<\/strong><\/p>\n The concept of shuttle transporters to overcome the blood-brain barrier was first introduced in 1986 by the North American\u00a0William M. Pardridge, from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Five years later, the feasibility of antibodies, like the ones used by the immune system, to cross the barrier was demonstrated experimentally. Pardridge will give the plenary lecture entitled\u00a0\u201cBiologics drug delivery to brain with blood-brain-barrier molecular Trojan Horses\u201d.<\/p>\n The strategy of using antibodies as shuttles was developed from the advances made by\u00a0Pardridge\u00a0and published in an article in\u00a0Neuron\u00a0in 2014, which described an application for an immunotherapy-based treatment for Alzheimer\u2019s disease. This particular approach, based on a fragment of antibody (which serves as the shuttle) coupled to another antibody (which is the therapeutic agent) is being developed by the pharmaceutical company Roche.<\/p>\n Another strategic shuttle line was put forward at the beginning of the XXI century. This approach involves peptides, the smallest proteins and least expensive for the generation of antibodies. In 2005,\u00a0Giralt,\u00a0Group Leader of\u00a0<\/span>an expert on peptide chemistry, launched this line of research at Design, synthesis and structure of peptides and proteins\u00a0IRB Barcelona and has now started to generate the first peptide shuttles able to cross the barrier.<\/p>\n The most recent approach is a peptide based on apamin, a protein extracted from bee venom. Once the toxicity has been removed from this molecule, the peptide is still able to cross the barrier and has a long life in blood. This result appeared in the journal\u00a0Angewandte Chemie\u00a0in October. In addition to this shuttle peptide,\u00a0Giralt\u2019s\u00a0lab has achieved two more based on other strategic chemistries.<\/p>\n Another prominent scientist at the conference is the physician\u00a0Jaume Mora, from the Sant Joan de D\u00e9u Hospital in Barcelona. Dr.\u00a0Mora\u00a0is an expert in a kind of incurable paediatric brain cancer. His lab and that of Prof. Giralt have started a collaborative project to couple an anti-tumor therapy to shuttle peptides. This shuttle, which involves the two scientists and other European partners, has just received funding from\u00a0EuroNanoMed-II\u00a0programme, which is run by the European Union.<\/p>\n \u201cThe traditional way of identifying small molecules capable of crossing the barrier has been exhausted, and the Trojan horse strategy is now giving promising results and opens up therapeutic opportunities for the treatment of brain diseases,\u201d concludes Giralt.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 20 pioneering scientists present their latest research on the barrier and the breakthroughs in therapeutic shuttle transporters that target the brain in the ‘Blood-Brain-Barrier’\u00a0Barcelona Biomed Conference,\u00a0an event organised by IRB Barcelona<\/a> with\u00a0the University of Tohoku\u00a0(Jap\u00f3) and supported by the BBVA Foundation.\u00a0One of the latest results is a shuttle based on bee venom developed by Ernest Giralt’s Lab\u00a0<\/a>from IRB Barcelona at PCB.\u00a0The conference starts today at the\u00a0Institut d\u2019Estudis Catalans\u00a0in Barcelona and ends on Wednesday 4th November.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":51616,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-45583","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n