Antidepressant shows promise for treating brain tumours

Drug widely available and inexpensive

25-Sep-2024 - Researchers at ETH Zurich have used a drug screening platform they developed to show that an antidepressant, currently on the market, kills tumour cells in the dreaded glioblastoma – at least in the cell-culture dish. Glioblastoma is a particularly aggressive brain tumour that at present is ...

Kizoo leads financing round in Reservoir Neuroscience to restore health to the aging brain

A first-in-kind compound reverses disease in blood vessels and repairs the damaged blood-brain barrier

24-Jan-2024 - Reservoir Neuroscience announced the completion of a $4M financing round to support the development of new therapies for age-related neurodegeneration. Reservoir will use the funds to develop its novel class of drug compounds designed to restore health to the brain’s blood vessels to rejuvenate ...

Too much “happiness hormone” causes health problems: New agent regulates serotonin production

Start-up aims to develop the drug for the market

11-Jan-2024 - Diseases can emerge when the body’s production of serotonin is out of whack. Researchers led by Michael Bader from the Max Delbrück Center have discovered a therapeutic agent that brings down high levels of this hormone. Their start-up, Trypto Therapeutics, aims to develop the drug for the ...

Secretomics uncovers blood-brain barrier mystery

15-Aug-2023 - Researchers identify novel gelatinase substrates involved in astroglial barrier function: In neuroinflammation, immune cells such as leukocytes cross the blood-brain barrier. One key to this is the gelatinases matrix metalloproteinase (MMP)-2 and -9. Until now, the substrates of these enzymes ...

The harmful effects of immune cells in hypertension

“Our findings suggest that macrophages and microglia undergo extensive reprogramming during hypertension”

27-Feb-2023 - Hypertension can damage the heart, brain, and blood vessels. The immune system plays an important role in this process, Suphansa Sawamiphak from the Max Delbrück Center reports in Cardiovascular Research. The study, using zebrafish, found that inflammation causes macrophages to damage blood ...

Achieving a better understanding of how the blood-brain barrier works

Realistic model developed: Pharma company already interested

21-Feb-2023 - Up to now, the use of models to research the barrier that separates the circulatory from the nervous system has proven to be either limited or extremely complicated. Researchers at ETH Zurich have developed a more realistic model that can also be used to better explore new treatments for brain ...

How Covid-19 Causes Neurological Damage

Holes in the blood-brain barrier

16-Nov-2022 - Although the coronavirus known as SARS-CoV-2 does not infect nerve cells, it can cause damage to the nervous system. Researchers from the University of Basel and University Hospital Basel have studied the mechanisms responsible for this effect, known as “neuro-Covid”, and identified starting ...

Drug Testing with Artificial Brain Vessels

Screening method simulates filter effect of the “blood-brain barrier”

05-Sep-2022 - In the journal “Biomaterials”, DZNE researchers present a novel method for testing chemical agents that could help in the development of drugs against neurodegenerative diseases. This analytical technique allows to study in the laboratory whether new drug candidates have a realistic chance of ...

New discoveries about the origin of the brain’s immune system

Significance for Alzheimer’s, multiple sclerosis and more

03-May-2022 - What gets into the brain and what doesn’t is strictly regulated. Researchers at the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Freiburg have now studied phagocytes that coat the blood vessels in the brain and reinforce the blood-brain barrier. As the scientists from the Institute of Neuropathology ...

Could leaky blood vessels in the brain be a culprit in Alzheimer’s disease?

A promising new approach to treating Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias

15-Mar-2022 - Alzheimer’s disease is an enormous problem that, with an aging population, will only get bigger. More than 6 million Americans are living with Alzheimer’s disease, and 1 in 3 seniors will die of it, according to theAlzheimer’s Association. By 2050, the cost of Alzheimer’s disease, currently ...