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22 Mar 2011

UK Study Breaks Blood-Brain Barrier to Deliver Drugs

One of the medical challenges with diseases of the brain is getting any treatment to cross the blood-brain barrier.

Scientists at the University of Oxford in the UK have developed a new method for delivering complex drugs directly to the brain. Researchers said that the new method is a necessary step for treating Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, motor neurone diseases and muscular dystrophy.

 

In an experiment involving mice, scientists switched off the BACE1 gene implicated in Alzheimer's disease by intravenously injecting exosomes, which are able to ferry a drug across the normally impermeable blood-brain barrier to the brain. This resulted in a 60% decrease in the gene's activity.

 

Dr Matthew Wood of the Department of Physiology, Anatomy and Genetics at the University of Oxford said, “Thes

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