Drug DELIvery to the brain via CHOroid Plexus targeting

Introduction

CNS disorders, e.g. brain cancer and Alzheimer’s disease, are the most common, debilitating, and underserved diseases. CNS drugs have historically suffered from considerably lower success rates during development than those for non-CNS indications.

CNS Barriers

One of the major reasons is the presence of CNS barriers, including the blood-brain (BBB) and blood-cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) barrier. These blood-brain interfaces severely restrict the cerebral bioavailability of pharmaceutical compounds. While numerous attempts have been done to find methods to efficiently shuttle compounds over the BBB, less work has been done on blood-CSF crossers.

Hypothesis

Here, I hypothesize that targeting the blood-CSF barrier at the choroid plexus (ChP) is an attractive, innovative, and underexplored strategy to deliver therapeutics to the brain. Indeed, this CNS barrier forms a unique interface between blood and CSF, and delivery of therapeutics across the ChP epithelial cells may offer added value for the treatment of CNS diseases.

Recent Findings

Recently, we could show that the blood-CSF barrier, via hijacking the FOLR1 pathway, is indeed a novel and exciting entry site to deliver therapeutics to the brain. Proof of concept data convincingly show that our in-house generated anti-FOLR1 single domain antibody (VHH) is able to deliver a peptide into the brain. Undoubtedly, further validating the use of this VHH as a brain shuttle could have major therapeutic implications.

Research Objectives

Here, I aim to investigate:

1. Which cargos can be shuttled into (specific regions of) the brain,
2. Which neurological disorders might be targeted, and
3. Whether other RMT targets at the blood-CSF barrier have similar brain targeting capacity.

Conclusion

This project will finally reveal whether the blood-CSF barrier is an interesting entry route to the brain with therapeutic potential. Consequently, I infer that the data generated from this project may provide major impetus to the development of novel therapeutic strategies for the treatment of CNS diseases.