Nanoparticles deliver drugs to brain cross BBB
 

...new technique pioneered by researchers at Florida International University for treating HIV by acting directly on the brain, delivering medicine across the blood-brain barrier through the use of nanoparticles. Wednesday, we spoke to Florida International University researcher Sakhrat Khizroev about the breakthrough and its potential for treatment of other brain diseases like Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and brain cancers.

“Crossing the blood-brain barrier using nanoparticles is not a new thing,” explained Khizroev. “Our discovery involved using the latest nanoparticles, called magneto-electric particles.” These particles utilize quantum mechanics to couple fields of magnetic and electric energy without generating heat.

The FIU team’s approach uses magnetic energy to manipulate the electrical charges of those particles once they are inside the brain. Khizroev and the research team loaded the nanoparticles with the drug AZTTP, then signaled them to release the drug directly at the site of infected tissue...


Once the particles are in the brain, he said, “we see them and we can also control them. They are magnetic components that we can move around. And on top of it, we can control the electric force right next to them. Electric forces define everything in the body.”

Electrical forces bind the drug — AZTTP in this study — to the nanoparticles in the form of ionic bonds. The scientists use magnetic energy to reverse the polarity of those bonds, releasing the medicine...

Previous attempts with less efficient particles, Khizroev said, were unsuccessful because the particles could not release the drugs on command. Older, less efficient nanoparticles required much higher levels of magnetism to accomplish less in terms of the particle’s response, creating an energy imbalance that the particles gave off as heat, which would damage brain tissue if used in a patient...




With the new approach, a patient could be injected with nanoparticles in their physician’s office, then be exposed to a hand-held magnetic coil positioned about a centimeter away from the skull. The doctor would use the magnet to direct the medicine-bearing particles across the blood-brain barrier, then change their electrical polarity, signaling them to release the drug with no need for a large, bulky MRI machine or other large magnets...

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/05/0...in-treatments/