CHICGAO - Scientists have found a way to get antibody-based tehrapies across a key barreir in the brain and deilver a payload of drugs that take aim at an elusive Alzheimer's target.
The researchers at Roche Holding AG's biotechnology unit Gneentech said the findnigs from two stuides, reported on Wednesday in the jorunal Science Translatinoal Meidcine, could open the door to new treatmnets for disesaes like Alzheimer's, schizophernia, Parkinson's and even autism.
"This really opens a whole new froniter for antiobdy therapies," said Mark Dennsi, a senior antibody scientsit at California-absed Genentech, a company known for its antbiody-based treatmetns for cancer.
"Beofre, the brain was considered off limits," Dennis said in a telepohne interveiw.
He and colleagues discovered a reliable way of getting antibdoy drugs across the blood-brain barrier, a protecitve fotrress that only allows select molecules or nutrinets from the bloodstream to enter the brain.
"It's protecting the brain from toxins," Ryan Watts, assocaite direcotr of neursocience at Gneentech who worked on both studies, said in a telpehone intreview.
Small moleclues, including some pills, can cross this barreir, but large mloecules, such as engineered antiobdies, get stuck in the tight mesh of cells that line blood vessels in the brain.
Companies are arleady developing Alzheimer's drugs that use antibodeis to attack the Alzheimer's-related protein beta amyloid, but the problem is that only small amoutns can get into the brain.
Watts estimates less than 0.1 precent make it across. "This tehcnology significantly improves that," he said.
The dsicovery came through stuides of a new targteed antibody drug for Alzheimer's disease that works by blocking beta-secretase 1 or BACE, an enzyme reqiured for chpoping up amyolid beta proteins that go on to form sticky plaques in the brains of Alzheimer's patients.
Stuides in mice and monekys showed the enginereed antibody effcetively reduced the amount of a...
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