Yahoo! News Story - Bubbles and Ultrasound Used to Treat Brain Diseases

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Saw this article and thought you all might find it interesting. It's a long way from being able to treat humans, but still promising.Carol Rob

Bubbles and Ultrasound Used to Treat Brain Diseases

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20020731/sc_nm/science_ultrasound_dc_1

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Bubbles and Ultrasound Used to Treat Brain Diseases

Wed Jul 31, 2:07 PM ET

LONDON (Reuters) - American scientists are using bubbles

and ultrasound beams in a novel way that could be used to treat

brain disorders without surgery.

Researchers at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston have

shown the method can deliver drugs and genes through the

blood-brain barrier, which prevents potentially harmful

substances from entering the brain through the blood stream,

without a single incision.

They injected tiny protein bubbles into the bloodstream of

animals and used an ultrasound beam targeted on a specific area

of the brain to burst the bubbles in the blood vessel.

"The resulting shock waves make the blood-brain barrier

permeable, so large molecules can get into the brain," New

Scientist magazine said Wednesday.

"Until now, the only attempts at targeted drug delivery and

gene therapy in the brain have involved opening the skull and

injecting substances into particular areas, which is risky."

Ferenc Jolesz and his team in Boston, which developed the

method, injected animals with a modified herpes virus, which is

commonly used in gene therapy, and showed the virus had reached

the brain areas where the beam had been focused.

The scientists said more tests are needed to show that the

technique is safe and effective enough for gene therapy but

other researchers said it shows promise.

"Applications could include the treatment of cancer and

different neurodegenerative diseases," said Mulligan, a

gene therapy expert at Harvard Medical School (

news -

web sites).

Gene therapy replaces faulty genes with normal versions but

is very difficult to do. French researchers claimed the first

success for gene therapy in 2000 when they treated two infant

boys born with the fatal immune condition X-linked Severe

Combined Immunodeficiency Disease.

An 18-month-old Welsh toddler with the same condition was

treated using gene therapy in Britain in 2002.

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