A standard platform to get drugs into the brain: focused ultrasound plus shuttle-engineered therapeutics
Most cancer drugs cannot cross into the brain. Combine ultrasound that briefly opens the barrier with drugs engineered to be carried across, and make this a standard platform for every brain tumour and brain metastasis.
The blood-brain barrier excludes most antibodies and many small molecules, limiting therapy for glioblastoma and brain metastases from lung, breast and melanoma. Focused ultrasound with microbubbles transiently opens the barrier and has delivered chemotherapy and antibodies in early trials; receptor-mediated shuttles (transferrin receptor) carry biologics across in neurology. The proposal is a platform programme: standardised ultrasound protocols and devices, a library of shuttle-enabled versions of active cancer drugs (antibody-drug conjugates, checkpoint inhibitors, bispecifics), pharmacokinetic validation in humans, and a trial network to test them in brain tumours and metastases.
- The brain: barrier and sanctuary · Most drugs cannot cross into the brain, so brain tumours and brain metastases lag every other site.
- Metastasis is understood least and studied last · Metastasis causes about nine in ten cancer deaths but gets a small fraction of research money and almost no trials of its own.
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not linked directly; found by shared links- InstitutionUVA Comprehensive Cancer Center
Shares Insightec, Focused ultrasound & histotripsy, Melanoma.
- TechnologySonodynamic therapy
Shares Insightec, Focused ultrasound & histotripsy, Glioma & glioblastoma.
- IdeaBuild a human model of the barrier that guards the brain fluid
Shares The brain: barrier and sanctuary, HER2-positive breast cancer, Melanoma, Non-small-cell lung cancer.
- IdeaTreat brain metastases as a disease with its own trials programme
Shares The brain: barrier and sanctuary, HER2-positive breast cancer, Glioma & glioblastoma, Melanoma.
- InstitutionSunnybrook Odette Cancer Centre
Shares Insightec, Focused ultrasound & histotripsy, The brain: barrier and sanctuary, Glioma & glioblastoma.
- IdeaUltrasound-assisted blood test instead of a brain biopsy
Shares Insightec, The brain: barrier and sanctuary, Glioma & glioblastoma.
- IdeaBrain metastases included by default in every solid-tumour trial
Shares The brain: barrier and sanctuary, HER2-positive breast cancer, Melanoma, Non-small-cell lung cancer.
- IdeaDeliver CAR-T cells straight into the fluid around the brain
Shares The brain: barrier and sanctuary, Metastasis is understood least and studied last, HER2-positive breast cancer, Glioma & glioblastoma.