NorthWest Biotherapeutics Inc (NWBO)

[flipper44]

Terry,

I'm not certain Dolphins can carry rabies, but the 2007 NIH link you sent me on a rabies peptide smuggling in therapeutic material across the blood brain barrier has me foaming at the mouth. Is that good?

It is times like this that I wish my talents rested more towards the likes of Gary Larson exemplified by his Far Side Cartoons.

All the mice in the control groups died from JEV infection; in contrast, 80 percent of the mice that got the antiviral siRNA linked to the rabies peptide survived. These experiments demonstrate how the rabies peptide can be used to deliver antiviral siRNA across the blood-brain barrier and into nerve cells in the brain. Once inside brain nerve cells, the antiviral siRNA can silence key viral genes to control the infection. Furthermore, repeated administration of the RNA interference therapy did not trigger inflammation or antibodies to the peptide.
Currently, doctors use various methods to deliver therapeutic drugs directly into the brain. These methods involve invasive procedures that result in only localized delivery around the site of injection. The new research provides a safe and non-invasive method for delivering therapeutic molecules across the blood-brain barrier. It has the potential to be applied to the treatment of a variety of brain infections and diseases. The researchers are now trying to improve the efficacy of this delivery system and to make a stable form of siRNA that might yield even better results.
Article: "Transvascular delivery of small interfering RNA to the central nervous system," by N Manjunath et al. Nature DOI: 10.1038/nature05901 (2007