By Joanna Sun, Leo Lansky, Larry To, Natasha Paranjapye  The blood-brain-barrier (BBB) is a protective membrane layer covering the brain that maintains a safe environment for the brain, regulating what passes to and from it. It acts as a guard wall for the most important organ of the body, but becomes a problem for accessing the brain for therapeutic drugs. Developing therapeutics that directly reach the brain would take a huge step towards treating diseases of the central nervous system (CNS) such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, cerebral palsy, and brain tumors. Historically, researchers have faced problems with dose and efficacy. That is, until transformative findings led by Dr. Elizabeth Nance demonstrated the first successful completely bio-inert drug delivery platform capable of penetrating the BBB and moving in the brain microenvironment [1].
This safe and biodegradable polymeric nanoparticle-based platform was shown to not only penetrate the BBB, but locally and specifically travel to the desired therapeutic area in living rat brains. Published in August 2012, this work represents enormous progress in the potential for sustained, targeted, and regulated delivery of drugs into the brain and brought Dr. Nance worldwide attention, including recognition in a ‘30 under 30’ list of young scientists changing the world by Forbes magazine [2]. Denatured Journal spent a morning meeting with Dr. Nance, now a Clare Boothe Luce Assistant Professor in Chemical Engineering and Adjunct Professor of Radiology at the University of Washington, to learn about her plans for her research and how her unique background and philosophy drives her passion for discovery.
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By Michael Butler, Jeffery Ni, and Anastasia Nicolov  Each year, news reports herald the latest infectious disease scare. In the last few months, Zika virus has been on the forefront of the public’s awareness, with concerns over the safety of Rio’s Summer Olympics and calls from South American governments to postpone pregnancy until further notice in order to curtail side effects of the disease [1]. Within recent memory, Ebola virus, swine flu, and SARS have all posed global threats.
By Joanna Sun, Leo Lansky, Larry To, Natasha Paranjapye
By Jeffrey Ni  Current cancer treatment is like you and cancer being chased by a bull. You’re just running and praying the bull doesn’t get to you first. But what if we could give you an invisibility cloak, or give cancer an obnoxiously red outfit? Researchers at University of Science and Technology of China, Georgia Tech, and Emory have been collaborating on a nanoscale “cluster bomb” method of drug delivery that allows cisplatin, a chemotherapy drug, to more accurately target tumor cells. So far this has only been tested in mice, but its implications could improve the lives of those going through cancer treatment.
For more info, check out this article: http://phys.org/news/2016-03-nanoparticles-anticancer-cluster.html |
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