Pharmaceutics & Novel Drug Delivery Systems

Biography

Biography: Alain L Fymat

Abstract

There are approximately 400 known neural disorders some of which being due to a disruption or failure (breakdown, opening, damage) of the blood brain barrier (BBB), while other disorders may still have unknown effects on it. Examples include: meningitis (an inflammation of the meninges or membranes surrounding the brain and spinal cord); epilepsy (chronic or acute seizures caused by inflammation); multiple sclerosis (MS — a disease of the immune system or/and the breaking down of the BBB in a section of the brain or spinal cord); Alzheimer disease (AD — a disease in which amyloid beta contained in blood plasma enter the brain and adhere to the surface of astrocytes); possibly prion and prion-like diseases such as Parkinson disease (PD) and AD; HIV encephalitis (a precursor of HIV-associated dementia in which latent HIV can cross the BBB inside circulating monocytes in the blood stream); and systemic inflammation (sterile or infectious) that may lead to effects on the brain, cause sickness behavior and induce or/and accelerate brain diseases such as MS and PD. There are currently active investigations into treatments for a compromised BBB. As a consequence of the growing aging population, many such neurodegenerative diseases, cancer and infections of the brain will become more prevalent. Here are those disorders requiring treatment by delivery of drugs across, behind and beyond the BBB. It is therefore of utmost importance to grasp the difficulties encountered when attempting to deliver therapeutics at the right brain locations and at the right time-dose fractionations. This presentation will first briefly review the brain diseases and their effects on the BBB, discuss the early discovery and physiological development of the BBB, provide a brief primer on nanoneurology, and discuss the clinical significance of the BBB as a drug target.  The drug delivery difficulties and their limitations, the drug targeting mechanisms (“behind”, “through” and “beyond” the BBB), and describe the novel uses offered by nanotechnology (nanoparticles and nano delivery devices) will then be discussed, followed by suggestions regarding approaches for the enhancement of drug delivery including physiological approaches, chemical and biological delivery, disruption of the BBB system, use of molecular Trojan horse systems. This will be concluded with future prospects in this research field.