Work Package 3

In vivo monitoring of nanocarrier transport and therapy in the brain

Principal Investigator: Torben Moos, Laboratory of Neurobiology, Department of Health Science and Technology, Aalborg University

We investigate uptake and transport of nanocarriers across the BBB in vitro using blood brain barrier models based on primary cells isolated form rats, mice, and pigs.
We investigate uptake and transport of nanocarriers at the brain capillaries and their transport further into the post capillary compartments in vivo using rodent models. The animal models are normal rats and mice, rats surgically operated to induce a chronic neurodegeneration, transgenic mice containing amyloid deposits, and nude mice with gliablastoma.
We investigate the influence of the basement membrane as a limiting factor for nanocarrier transport at the BBB and changes of the basement membrane in neurodegenerative diseases.
We investigate protein expression and secretion of recombinant proteins into the brain parenchyma, after viral and non-viral gene therapy to the brain capillary endothelium using in vitro BBB models and in vivo animal models. We explore this as a novel recombinant protein delivery strategy for the treatment of neurodegenerative and lysosomal storage diseases.