Group leader
Researchers identified how a neurological disease from the group of the lysosomal storage disorders, alters the natural entrance routes of molecules in the brain. They identified the most active ways … Read more
An international group of researchers from the University of Maryland (United States) and the Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC) led by ICREA Research Professor Silvia Muro, has identified a new way of transporting drugs to the brain, one of the major challenges of the pharmaceutical science today, that could help to come up with new treatments for neurological diseases such as Parkinson’s or Alzheimer’s.To find this out, the experts linked an antibody capable of recognizing the ICAM-1 protein -a molecule expressed on the surface of blood vessels- to a series of polymeric nanoparticles that can transport drugs and inject them intravenously.
The Faster Future program campaign “Let’s tackle Parkinson”, which is launched today and will remain open to donations until the 30th of April, has the aim to raise 50,000 € needed to accelerate this research, seeking to obtain favourable results within a year and a half.
IBEC group leader Silvia Muro has been granted funding in MINECO’s ‘Explora Ciencia’ and ‘Explora Tecnología’ 2017 call.It’s the first competitive grant for Silvia and her group since she joined IBEC at the end of 2017, and one of only 97 research projects to be financed out of the 1594 applications submitted – a success rate of only 6%.
The project, ‘Controlling the differential transport of therapeutic cargoes into versus across the BBB (BBB2GATE)’ will aim to develop drug vehicles that can cross the blood-brain barrier using the natural routes that the body’s substances use to circumvent this obstruction.