SCAN:Particulate delivery systems for CNS therapy: a continuous challenge

ITQB- SCAN Seminar

Title: Particulate delivery systems for CNS therapy: a continuous challenge

Speaker: Ana A. Matias

Affiliation: PhD, Nutraceuticals & Controlled Delivery Lab, ITQB/IBET

Abstract:

In the past few decades, tremendous efforts have been focused on the chemotherapy of the diseases of the Central Nervous Systems (CNS). However, in many cases, the success of the treatment remained poor. One of the obstacles for successful chemotherapy is the ineffective drug delivery to the site of pathology within the CNS due to existence of the blood–brain barrier (BBB).

The BBB limits the transport of therapeutic molecules from the blood compartment into the brain, thus greatly reducing the species of therapeutic compounds that can be efficiently accumulated in the CNS.

To solve the inability of drugs to cross the BBB, invasive techniques or neurosurgery, as well as a temporary chemical or physical disruption of the BBB, could be used but are not devoid of risks.

So far, the non-invasive systemic delivery of the drugs to the brain remains a challenge that gives rise to the development of new drug-targeting technologies.

Among others the production and development of micro/nanoparticulate systems for systemic drug delivery to the brain appears to be a promising and interesting option.

These systems offer diverse advantages over invasive strategies, since i) they are designed using biocompatible and biodegradable materials; ii)  they avoid the disruption and/or modification of the BBB; and iii) they could modulate the biopharmaceutical properties of the entrapped drugs.

Moreover, the possibility of targeting specific brain tissue, thanks to ligands linked to the surface of the particulate devices, confers the necessary characteristics for the treatment of CNS pathologies to these drug carriers.

In Nutraceuticals & Controlled Delivery lab we are putting efforts in developing micro/nanoparticulate hybrid [Pol-Lip] systems as new strategies for CNS therapy through one-step precipitation process (supercritical fluid and/or conventional precipitation process).  The application of supercritical fluids as an alternative (or complementary) to conventional precipitation processes has been an active field of research and innovation during the past two decades.