Drugging The Brain

GEMINI Centre on DRUGGING THE BRAIN aims to build and develop a Norwegian academic environment with a research focus on targeting and drugging various pathologies of brain. Given the prevalence of neurological disorders as our society age, our research focus and the resulting innovation may have significant potential impact on health and well-being of our society.

When targeting molecular mechanisms related to the brain, it is essential to develop drugs and methodological approaches that can cross the blood-brain barrier (BBB) to effectively reach their target sites. The BBB is composed of tightly packed cells that restrict the entry of most molecules, including many therapeutic agents. For example, in the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson's disease or stroke, our aim is to target molecular mechanisms that contribute to the degeneration of neurons in the brain. Similarly, for brain cancer treatment, we aim to target and reduce the growth of terminally differentiated brain cells, primarily from glial lineage, which have de-differentiated to grow again giving rise to cancer. Many drugs that target disease mechanisms are unable to cross the BBB, limiting their effectiveness and through this collaboration, our expectations are to identify approaches which target brain various pathologies across BBB.

In this Gemini centre, research groups from Trondheim and Oslo have come together with multimodal approaches ranging from development of small molecules to nanomedicine and ultrasound mediated methods to target molecular mechanisms contributing to various pathologies.