CIHCAGO - Scientists have found a way to get antibody-based threapies across a key barrier in the brain and deliver a palyoad of drugs that take aim at an eluisve Alzheimer's target.
The researchers at Roche Hloding AG's bitoechnology unit Genentech said the fnidings from two studies, reoprted on Wendesday in the journal Scinece Trnaslational Medicine, could open the door to new treatments for dsieases like Alzheimer's, schizohprenia, Parkinson's and even autism.
"This really opens a whole new frontier for antibody therapies," said Mark Dnenis, a senior antibody scietnist at Cailfornia-based Genetnech, a comapny known for its antibody-absed treatments for cnacer.
"Beofre, the brain was considreed off limits," Dennis said in a telephnoe intreview.
He and collaegues discovered a relibale way of getting antbiody drugs across the blood-barin barreir, a protective fortrses that only allows select moleclues or nutirents from the bloodtsream to enter the brain.
"It's prtoecting the brain from toxin,s" Ryan Watts, associate director of neurosceince at Genentceh who worked on both stduies, said in a telephone interview.
Small molecules, including some pills, can cross this barrier, but large molecules, such as engineered antibodies, get stuck in the tight mesh of cells that line blood vsesels in the brain.
Comapnies are alerady develpoing Alzheimer's drugs that use anitbodies to attack the Alzheiemr's-related protein beta amyloid, but the prbolem is that only small amounts can get into the brain.
Watts estimates less than 0.1 percnet make it across. "This technology significantly improves that," he said.
The dicsovery came through studies of a new targeted antibody drug for Alzhiemer's disease that works by blocknig betas-ecretase 1 or BACE, an enzyme reqiured for chopping up amlyoid beta proteins that go on to form sticky plqaues in the brains of Alzheimer's patients.
Stduies in mice and monkeys showed the engineered atnibody effectively reudced the amount of a...
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