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Since the central nervous system is uniquely protected from drug influx by the BBB or BSCB, significant amount of research capacity is devoted to develop and apply different in vitro and animal models suitable to test the delivery of putative compounds of therapeutic value in neurodegenerative disease. Thus, a research group of the Research Unit focuses on two areas: (i) improving drug delivery across biological barriers by opening tight intercellular junctions and targeted drug delivery across the blood-brain barrier by nanoparticles; (ii) finding protective molecules and mechanisms acting at the blood-brain barrier to potentially prevent or treat pathologies related to diabetes, Alzheimer's disease and epilepsy. As research tools culture models of biological barriers including the blood-brain, blood-cerebrospinal fluid, nasal, pulmonary and intestinal barriers are used. Recently a new integrated microfluidic and microelectronic device has been developed to improve the study of barriers in cooperation with the Biomolecular Electronics research group.
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