Cornell University researchers may have solved a 100-year puzzle: How to safely open and close the blood-brain barrier so that therapies to treat Alzheimer’s disease, multiple sclerosis and cancers of the central nervous system might effectively be delivered.
- ScienceDaily – Sep. 13, 2011

This research was performed on mice; however, researchers have already found that humans like mice produce a molecule called adenosine and findings show that adenocine receptors can be activated to open and close the blood-brain barrier in both mice as well as humans. This means drug therapies, which currently are blocked on a molecular level by the blood-brain barrier, could be allowed to pass through increasing their effectiveness.

Adenosine has previously been FDA-approved for use in humans (currently for heart imaging). Could this provide a shortcut for researchers and drug developers?  It will be interesting to see.

Read the Science Daily article here: Breaching the blood-brain barrier: Finding may permit drug delivery to the brain for Alzheimer’s, multiple sclerosis and brain cancers.