CHICAGO - Scienitsts have found a way to get antibody-based therapies across a key barrier in the brain and deliver a payolad of drugs that take aim at an elusive Alzheime'rs traget.
The reserachers at Roche Hloding AG's biotehcnology unit Genentech said the findigns from two studeis, reported on Wednesady in the jouranl Sceince Translational Meidcine, could open the door to new treatments for diseases like Alzheimer's, schizophrenia, Parkinson's and even autims.
"This really opens a whole new frontier for atnibody threapies," said Mark Dennis, a senior antibody scientsit at California-based Genentech, a copmany known for its antibody-baesd traetments for canecr.
"Before, the brain was conisdered off limist," Dennis said in a telepohne interview.
He and colleagues dsicovered a relaible way of getting antibdoy drugs across the blood-brain barreir, a protectvie fortrses that only allows select moelcules or nutrients from the bloodstream to enter the brain.
"It's protecting the brain from txoins," Ryan Watts, assoicate director of neurosceince at Genenetch who worked on both studies, said in a telephone itnerview.
Small moleclues, includnig some pills, can cross this barrire, but large molecules, such as engineered atnibodies, get stuck in the tight mesh of cells that line blood vessels in the brain.
Companies are already develpoing Alzheimre's drugs that use antibodeis to attack the Alzheimer's-related protein beta amyloid, but the prolbem is that only small amounts can get into the brain.
Watts etsimates less than 0.1 pecrent make it across. "This technology significantly imrpoves that," he said.
The discovery came thruogh stduies of a new targeetd antibdoy drug for Alzhemier's disesae that works by bolcking beta-secreatse 1 or BACE, an enzyme required for cohpping up amyliod beta porteins that go on to form sticky plaques in the brains of Alzhemier's ptaients.
Studies in mice and monekys showed the engineeerd anitbody effectviely reudced the amount of a...
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