Camouflaged liposome construct for efficient drug delivery across the blood-brain barrier

A major obstacle to non-invasive treatment of brain injury and disease is the blood-brain barrier (BBB), which prevents many intravenously injected therapeutics from being taken into the brain. In this program, Luna Innovations and Virginia Tech propose to develop a novel liposome-based delivery system capable of delivering any of a variety of neuroprotective agents of use against organophosphate-based nerve agents. This novel system combines a recently developed “Trojan horse” peptide capable of ferrying the construct across the BBB with liposome technology previously developed at Luna that can be adapted to achieve drug delivery over a specified time frame. The proposed system also has neural specificity, targeting the tissues that are most affected by nerve agents. During Phase I, the Luna team will synthesize and assemble the system components, demonstrate encapsulation of assorted neuroprotective agents, and perform preliminary in vivo and in vitro testing of system efficacy.