After cancer and heart disease, neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, multiple sclerosis (MS), amythrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), take more lives each year than any other illness. Although great progress has been made in recent years toward understanding of neurodegenerative diseases, few effective treatments and no cures are currently available. This is mainly because the blood-brain barrier (BBB) limits the delivery of the vast majority of systemically-administered drugs available to treat those diseases. The underlying hypothesis of this study is that delivery of therapeutic molecules is safe and effective through the blood-brain barrier (BBB) using Focused Ultrasound (FUS). Our preliminary results have shown that the FUS technique can induce BBB opening entirely noninvasively, selectively and be monitored with MRI at sub-millimeter resolution in vivo, both in normal mice and Alzheimer's-model mice. The primary objective of this study is thus to establish the neurotherapeutic potential of trans-BBB delivery using FUS, i.e., determine its complete safety and efficacy profiles. Once those are established, a secondary objective entails the potential for translation to the clinic, i.e., development of FUS prototypes for non-human primate and human use for future large animal and clinical assessment, respectively. The multi-disciplinary team assembled encompasses all critical specialty areas such as ultrasound engineering, Alzheimer's pathophysiology in animals and humans, histological and behavioral studies and transgenic model development as well as MR and fluorescence imaging expertise.
The specific aims of the study are therefore to: 1) assess the safety of the BBB opening in the presence or absence of disease in vivo;2) evaluate the efficacy of FUS-enhanced pharmacological therapies in vivo;and 3) build and test the FUS systems for transcranial BBB opening in non- human primates and humans. Following the proposed studies, this entirely noninvasive and highly localized BBB opening method will be tested in large animals and, ultimately, humans in conjunction with the most promising, systemically administered pharmacological agents to demonstrate its true clinical potential, for Alzheimer's or other neurodegenerative or neurological diseases.

Public Health Relevance

Due to the impermeability of the blood-brain barrier (BBB), neurological disorders and all age-related neurodegenerative diseases remain undertreated despite the thousands of pharmacological agents available. The primary objective of this study is thus to establish the neurotherapeutic potential of trans-BBB delivery using FUS. A secondary objective entails assessment of its potential for translation to clinical practice.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Institute on Aging (NIA)
Type
Research Project (R01)
Project #
5R01AG038961-04
Application #
8665852
Study Section
Medical Imaging Study Section (MEDI)
Program Officer
Petanceska, Suzana
Project Start
2011-08-01
Project End
2016-05-31
Budget Start
2014-06-01
Budget End
2015-05-31
Support Year
4
Fiscal Year
2014
Total Cost
$326,913
Indirect Cost
$121,913
Name
Columbia University (N.Y.)
Department
Biomedical Engineering
Type
Schools of Engineering
DUNS #
049179401
City
New York
State
NY
Country
United States
Zip Code
10027
Wu, Shih-Ying; Fix, Samantha M; Arena, Christopher B et al. (2018) Focused ultrasound-facilitated brain drug delivery using optimized nanodroplets: vaporization efficiency dictates large molecular delivery. Phys Med Biol 63:035002
Burgess, M T; Apostolakis, I; Konofagou, E E (2018) Power cavitation-guided blood-brain barrier opening with focused ultrasound and microbubbles. Phys Med Biol 63:065009
Pouliopoulos, Antonios N; Burgess, Mark T; Konofagou, Elisa E (2018) Pulse inversion enhances the passive mapping of microbubble-based ultrasound therapy. Appl Phys Lett 113:044102
Munoz, Fabian; Aurup, Christian; Konofagou, Elisa E et al. (2018) Modulation of Brain Function and Behavior by Focused Ultrasound. Curr Behav Neurosci Rep 5:153-164
Wu, Shih-Ying; Aurup, Christian; Sanchez, Carlos Sierra et al. (2018) Efficient Blood-Brain Barrier Opening in Primates with Neuronavigation-Guided Ultrasound and Real-Time Acoustic Mapping. Sci Rep 8:7978
Karakatsani, Maria Eleni Marilena; Samiotaki, Gesthimani Mania; Downs, Matthew E et al. (2017) Targeting Effects on the Volume of the Focused Ultrasound-Induced Blood-Brain Barrier Opening in Nonhuman Primates In Vivo. IEEE Trans Ultrason Ferroelectr Freq Control 64:798-810
Sierra, Carlos; Acosta, Camilo; Chen, Cherry et al. (2017) Lipid microbubbles as a vehicle for targeted drug delivery using focused ultrasound-induced blood-brain barrier opening. J Cereb Blood Flow Metab 37:1236-1250
Wang, Shutao; Karakatsani, Maria E; Fung, Christine et al. (2017) Direct brain infusion can be enhanced with focused ultrasound and microbubbles. J Cereb Blood Flow Metab 37:706-714
Wang, Shutao; Kugelman, Tara; Buch, Amanda et al. (2017) Non-invasive, Focused Ultrasound-Facilitated Gene Delivery for Optogenetics. Sci Rep 7:39955
Samiotaki, Gesthimani; Karakatsani, Maria Eleni; Buch, Amanda et al. (2017) Pharmacokinetic analysis and drug delivery efficiency of the focused ultrasound-induced blood-brain barrier opening in non-human primates. Magn Reson Imaging 37:273-281

Showing the most recent 10 out of 31 publications