Introduction
Many drugs that are potential candidates for the treatment of diseases need to reach the brain where they will interact to have the required efficancy.
Within the brain there is a permeable membrane known as the blood brain barrier, which drugs must cross to be able to reach the areas needed to have an effect.
UCLan research has developed a method of in vitro testing of compounds to assess whether they are capable of crossing the blood brain barrier and hence, be able to have efficacy in the brain.
Description
Our research has enabled the construction of an in vitro model of the blood brain barrier, and a method of use of the in vitro blood brain barrier in order to test whether drug candidates can cross through the barrier and so be able to have a therapeutic effect on a patient.
The barrier of the present invention has improved physiological relevance, and therefore is more useful for research into the permeability of the barrier to various molecules, specifically applications in assessing permeability of the barrier to candidate drugs.
The Blood brain barrier model produced as part of this research provides an improved simulation of the effect of the blood brain barrier in the brain and so can provide an improved indicator of the potential effectiveness of drugs that are required to reach the brain to have therapeutic effect.
Core advantages
The methods of manufacture and the resultant blood brain barrier produced by these method provides an improved predictive model to allow the investigation of candidate drugs to provide an improved indication of the permeability of the candidate through the blood brain barrier.
This should enable pharmaceutical companies to more rapidly and easily test the permeability of candidates, which should enable reduced expenditure within the drug development process.
Applications
- The methods and apparatus have application in the pharmaceutical development process to provide a rapid indicator of the ability of candidate drugs to pass through the blood brain barrier.
- The methods and apparatus may be capable of modelling a diseased blood brain barrier to enable the simulation of the permeability of a drug through the blood brain barrier for the treatment of patients who are suffering form illnesses which are related to issues relating to the blood brain barrier.