Current methods of delivering therapies to the brain often produce unpredictable results or have a hard time penetrating the protective shield known as the blood-brain barrier.
Shahar Bracha, a bioengineer and neuroscientist at MIT has a novel method. As a graduate student at Tel Aviv University, Bracha was looking for a better way to get drugs and therapeutic proteins into the brain. Those include proteins that can replace missing or nonfunctional ones in people with degenerative and developmental genetic diseases that affect the nervous system, such as Parkinson’s disease and Rett syndrome.
When she heard about T. gondii making mice behave recklessly. “It seems like that parasite has solved everything that we need for drug delivery,”
(Note- T. Gondii makes the mice lose their innate fear of cats into curiosity. Toxoplasma gondii is a protozoan parasite famous for its cunning ways. This microbial manipulator can only reproduce inside of cats, so, if it finds itself in another mammalian host, like a rat, it alters the rodent’s behavior to make it less fearful of felines. This effect has even been found in wild spotted hyena cubs, who behave more boldly toward lions when infected with T. gondii.)
To successfully infect host cells, T. gondii uses three different protein secretion systems. Two of these hinge on structures called rhoptries and dense granules and are used to make proteins destined to infiltrate cells such as neurons. Bracha edited the genes controlling proteins made by these systems so that T. gondii would make what’s called a fusion protein, which is essentially a parasitic protein stitched together with a therapeutic protein. In a way, this turns the parasite into a living, moving, miniature drug factory.
Bracha’s work led to the creation of Epeius Pharma, an Israeli biotech looking to turn T. gondii into a vehicle for drug delivery. The next big step is ensuring the parasite has had its dangerous side fully stripped away in the same way that viruses used for gene therapy have been neutered and made safe.
PS: Toxoplasma can be fatal to the immune compromised. Also it's quite dangerous to warm blooded mammals and in a human host, the parasites form tissue cysts, most commonly in skeletal muscle, myocardium, brain, and eyes; these cysts may remain throughout the life of the host.
So the other researchers say that there is still much to be done before this becomes a disease curing procedure and that includes minimizing if not removing any chance that the parasite can cause disease in the brain.
Shahar Bracha, a bioengineer and neuroscientist at MIT has a novel method. As a graduate student at Tel Aviv University, Bracha was looking for a better way to get drugs and therapeutic proteins into the brain. Those include proteins that can replace missing or nonfunctional ones in people with degenerative and developmental genetic diseases that affect the nervous system, such as Parkinson’s disease and Rett syndrome.
When she heard about T. gondii making mice behave recklessly. “It seems like that parasite has solved everything that we need for drug delivery,”
(Note- T. Gondii makes the mice lose their innate fear of cats into curiosity. Toxoplasma gondii is a protozoan parasite famous for its cunning ways. This microbial manipulator can only reproduce inside of cats, so, if it finds itself in another mammalian host, like a rat, it alters the rodent’s behavior to make it less fearful of felines. This effect has even been found in wild spotted hyena cubs, who behave more boldly toward lions when infected with T. gondii.)
To successfully infect host cells, T. gondii uses three different protein secretion systems. Two of these hinge on structures called rhoptries and dense granules and are used to make proteins destined to infiltrate cells such as neurons. Bracha edited the genes controlling proteins made by these systems so that T. gondii would make what’s called a fusion protein, which is essentially a parasitic protein stitched together with a therapeutic protein. In a way, this turns the parasite into a living, moving, miniature drug factory.
Bracha’s work led to the creation of Epeius Pharma, an Israeli biotech looking to turn T. gondii into a vehicle for drug delivery. The next big step is ensuring the parasite has had its dangerous side fully stripped away in the same way that viruses used for gene therapy have been neutered and made safe.
PS: Toxoplasma can be fatal to the immune compromised. Also it's quite dangerous to warm blooded mammals and in a human host, the parasites form tissue cysts, most commonly in skeletal muscle, myocardium, brain, and eyes; these cysts may remain throughout the life of the host.
So the other researchers say that there is still much to be done before this becomes a disease curing procedure and that includes minimizing if not removing any chance that the parasite can cause disease in the brain.
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