Neuroscience & Neurology
Rabies Virus Helps Deliver Drugs into the Brain
One of the greatest challenges neurologists face is successful delivery of drugs to the brain. This is because a special filtering layer of tissue, called the blood brain barrier, protects the brain and spinal cord. The barrier acts like a molecular sieve, allowing only properly sized molecules through. This means that any medication needing to reach the brain (for example, to kill a brain tumor) needs to be small enough, and even then, it is difficult to target the drug to specifically reach the brain.
Kumar and his colleagues from Harvard Medical School have developed a potentially revolutionary drug delivery method, taking advantage of a known master infiltrator of the brain: the virus responsible for rabies, also known as the rhabdovirus. Rabies viruses travel from the site of infection (a local wound bite) to the nerves, through which it gains access to the brain. It is one of the few viruses known to be nearly 100% deadly to mankind, when vaccination has not been administrated. Kumar and colleagues took advantage of the virus’ neurotropic ability by isolating a protein from the viral outer layer used to bind to the brain cells. They then attached an experimental drug to the purified fragment of protein, a small-interfering RNA. This RNA-peptide complex showed highly specific ability to access neurons in the brain that expressed receptors to the neurotransmitter acetylcholine. This high specificity of drug action was demonstrated to only occur in the brain, and not in other tissues of the body.
In this study, the drug was injected into the tail of the mice, targeting the blood vessels. Using small interfering RNA (siRNA) as a drug treatment for many diseases has been powerfully successful in other animal models, but the problem has always been the process of making it a practical drug for clinical application. Therefore, this new technology developed by Kumar et al sheds light into a new, non-invasive and feasible way to deliver siRNA specifically to the brain.
siRNA is gaining popularity as a preferred drug treatment method since its early conception in the past seven years. It takes advantage of the cell’s ability to stop its own protein production as soon as a short RNA sequence corresponding to the protein is detected outside of the cell’s nucleus. This triggers a powerful protein synthesis arrest, which can be harnessed to modulate or treat diseases such as diabetes, Hepatitis C, and even transplant rejection.
In 2006 the discoverers of siRNA, Andrew Z. Fire and Craig C. Mello, won the Nobel Prize in Medicine.
Reference
Kumar, P. et al. Transvascular delivery of small interfering RNA to the central nervous system. Nature 448, 39-43 (2007).
13 Comments/Trackbacks
TESSY
jitesh arora
GREAT ARTICLE.cheers to your work.
kranthi
great research.hope it works well for humans as well.
Paul
ever see I Am Legend? Now I’m scared.
hunkertothebunker
ever see I Am Legend? Now I’m scared.
Ditto! Let’s all take the virus with the biggest similarities to the various zombie viruses, mess around with it on a DNA level to make a more efficient way to infiltrate the brain. Do these people not watch TV at all!?
Amy
goes to show sci-fi can be just as much science as fiction. More info on the latest developments in brain and spinal cord research.
ruby
hi,,im 23 years old…im working at government hospital…there’s few of cat living there,,,while im on duty there was a kitten who jump over my pants..i was shock..so what i do was i kick it..ofcourse/.,,the kiiten scratch on my skin..i dnt know if im bitten or scratch….i consulted the resident physician,,,he said it was category 3..so i went at animal bite for injections for ant tetanus,anti rabies and so be it,
,i had my ERIG vacination ..its so expensive! it was so painfuuul were in it ingected directly to the wound,, …equally compute accdgly to my wieght,,,
it was DAy 8 wen i got it that vaccnation… ideally, ERIG is given upto day 7 after u biten by a rabid animal…..ryt?
i was worried about my situation..do u think im already protected or not?..the last anti rabies vacination are not given yet to me due for some reason,..i think that was a 1st booster..
do u think guys its okey to hold or missed or delay the booster vaccination??? im not satisfied from the animal bite what they told me..i need ur opinion pls send me at my email add…plss..cynder_18k@yahoo.com
Lorrie
So…my question is this: if viruses are not life as we define it and know, and viruses are not motile/mobile — how are they moving through anything? Is it not more accurate to describe viruses as potentially functional pieces of coding regions of DNA?RNA? So, it is the proteins (those wild and crazy things that want to act as if they had a mind of their own) as a result of the activity? Isn’t this more accurate?
Trackbacks
- Jan 12, 2008 | DOCTOR PUNDIT » Rabies Virus Investigated As Potential Drug Delivery Mechanism
- Jan 13, 2008 | BLOgACETA » Blog Archive » Usando la Rabia Para Curar
- Jan 19, 2008 | We Are One World Healing » Carnival of Healing #121
- Feb 01, 2008 | Usando la Rabia Para Curar : TecnoCulto
- Feb 03, 2008 | Love in Mendel’s Garden | Bitesize Bio
Leave a Reply
Monday, March 22, 2010
- Religion - A "Natural" Phenomenon?
- Psychotropics and Youth, Part 1 - The Five Myths
- How Culture Shapes Our Mind and Brain
- Sex, Violence and The Male Warrior Hypothesis
- The Secret to Good Health – Listen to the Data
- If Herbal Medicine is Medicine, Shouldn't it be Treated as Such?
- Neurology, Neurosurgery, and Neuroscience Conferences for 2010
- Too Much Information?
- "I Feel Your Pain" - The Neural Basis of Empathy
- Income Inequality and Health Outcomes
- The Evolution of Depression
- Journal Retracts Autism Research
- Speaking in Tongues - A Neural Snapshot
- Why Some Human Brains Become Leaders, While Others Followers?
- Post-Partum Psychosis - Rare but Real
- Is Your Doctor Happy or Burnt-Out?
- Worried Well on the Web
- Ginkgo Biloba Ineffective... Again
- Psychotropics and Youth, Part 2 - The Solutions
- Postoperative Cognitive Dysfunction
- Empathy – How Much is Too Much?
- Let the Matches Begin!
- My Nephew and his Brain, Part 4 – Their Life Today
- My Nephew and his Brain, Part 3 – Try to Work Out their Troubles
- My Nephew and his Brain, Part 2 – Revealed to be Complicated
- My Nephew and his Brain, Part 1 – Introduction
- Deep Brain Stimulation – A New Frontier in Psychiatry
- Psychotropics and Youth, Part 3 – Equip Teachers with Prescription Pads?
- Why Some Human Brains Become Leaders, While Others Followers?
- Brain Blogger Finalist for Two 2010 Research Blogging Awards in Neuroscience and Psychology
- Tall Tales of Diabetic Amputations
- Psychotropics and Youth, Part 2 – The Solutions
- Brain Blogging, Forty-Ninth Edition
- How Your Brain Groups Words
- The Child Brain and the Playing Teacher
- You Have a Right to Choose if we Agree
- Measuring Quality in Primary Care
- Matchmaker, Matchmaker Make Me A Match – The NRMP Main Residency Match
- Psychotropics and Youth, Part 1 – The Five Myths
- When It Comes to Aging, Size Matters
- i agree you dianne...
- Often, patients report persistent physical symptoms, but no somatic ...
- Great help, understood who is a LEADER & a FOLLOWER. Is there a category wh...
- Don't agree, to my opinion empathy is not easily learned, it's a quality not eve...
- Thanks, got the meaning of INTELLIGENCE/IQ....
- I'm a 54 yrs old woman .i was working for a retail company for 5 yrs ,my husbend...
- Thanks so much for sharing. My daughter began having seizures when she was 17. S...
- yea ur right lol lughter the best medicine i cnt do without it in a day!!!!!!!!!...
- Very touching story. My heart goes out to your family. Seizures are tough. And ...
- Thank you for sharing your nephew's story. So hard on those who love him, but I...
- Congratulations to all who've matched! Although the results of NRMP Main Residen...
- It's been almost 25 years since my son suffered a TBI in an accident. He was onl...
- I tend to agree with the teachers.But a teacher can only keep a record about the...
- Very interesting article, the 5th paragraph gets a little biased...but I still e...
- Dear Dan,There is certainly much clinical interest in this field. ClinicalTr...
- I recently commented on a sciencedaily.com article reporting success with TRD an...
- I have family members who are teachers. After sharing this article with them, th...
- It is great that people are challenging the use of this medication. As, a societ...
- I agree with the stand of the teachers and their children's that more than half ...
- I think that there’s also a social aspect to it. If you grow up in an area where...
Sponsored Links
Brain Fitness DVD, Home Care, Alcohol Rehab, Emergency Lighting, Online Criminal Justice Degrees, Tattoo, Diet and Health Supplements, Best vitamins supplements, Health Insurance, Electronic Accessory , Banner Stands , Medicines and Biotech Products , Metastatic Breast Cancer , Buy Bonefos , Cystic Fibrosis Lungs , Erlotinib , Dallas health insurance agency , About Arthritis , Individual Health Insurance , Lung Cancer Treatment , Allen personal injury attorney , How Common Are Treatment Reactions? , Edgepark Medical , Mattress , Hydroxycut, Astrology compatibility.
Neuroscience & Neurology
March 06, 2010 | 8 Comments | By Simi Agarwal, DDS
Why Some Human Brains Become Leaders, While Others Followers?
More In Neuroscience & Neurology
- How Your Brain Groups Words
- The Child Brain and the Playing Teacher
- “I Feel Your Pain” – The Neural Basis of Empathy
- Speaking in Tongues – A Neural Snapshot
- Neuro Case 1 – Using Transcranial Doppler for Basilar Artery Occlusion
Neuroscience & Neurology
Opinion
February 01, 2010 | 1 Comment | By Jennifer Gibson, PharmD
Crossing the Line from Physician to Journalist
More In Opinion
- Sex, Violence and The Male Warrior Hypothesis
- Bruxism and the Brain
- Religion – A “Natural” Phenomenon?
- Natural Good, Chemical Bad – Right?
- Time for a Change – Gender Reassignment
Opinion
Psychiatry & Psychology
March 21, 2010 | 1 Comment | By Jennifer Gibson, PharmD
Empathy – How Much is Too Much?
More In Psychiatry & Psychology
- Deep Brain Stimulation – A New Frontier in Psychiatry
- Psychotropics and Youth, Part 2 – The Solutions
- Psychotropics and Youth, Part 1 – The Five Myths
- Journal Retracts Autism Research
- White Bears – The Paradox of Mental Suppression


good job, well done