The world of medicine is evolving
as scientists are finding new ways to make surgical procedures less
invasive. However, one procedure that is
still difficult to achieve is being able to have medication pass across the
blood brain barrier.The blood brain barrier (BBB) is a feature in the human body that protects the
brain and controls the body homeostasis and ion channels. If there are any
complications with the structure that can lead to neurodegernaration and neuroinflammation.
This poses issues for patients who suffer from
neurodegenerative disorders because 95% of medication that is used cannot pass
across the BBB intravenously or orally. In order to administer medication to the brain
the patients has to experience surgery to remove their skull so that the
medication is injected directly into the site that needs treatment. One
approach to solve this problem is determining if viruses can be administered to
the affected location and introduces new genes to cells. It has been proven
that harmless viruses can pass across the blood brain barrier. The viruses are
able to hold different products such as drugs as well as entering the cell and
taking over the cell’s DNA. In order to find the right viruses to enter into
the brain the researchers used different shelled adeno-assosiated virus. After
the different trials it was determined that a virus called AAV-PHP.B was the
best at crossing over the blood brain barrier. The team of scientists injected
mice and the path in which the virus went was tracked with green florescent. As
the team observed the movement it was evident that the virus had reached a
larger portion of the brain. In the future, this method could potentially be
used to target other areas of the nervous system. This is a great step towards improving the way surgery is performed and will be cost effective. In addition, it will allow patients to carry out their lives unaffected with less recovery time with surgical procedures that are less invasive.
No comments:
Post a Comment