Projects

Carrying therapeutic cargoes across the blood-brain barrier to fight DIPG

Research

The blood brain barrier (BBB) is a natural and protective barrier that separates the brain from the circulatory system. This barrier is the bottleneck for more than 98% of CNS drug candidates that fail to cross it.

Gate2Brain is a technological platform to cross the BBB and carry therapeutic cargoes to the central nervous system. It is based on a set of patented small peptide-shuttles.

Aim

To advance the preclinical development of G2B-4-DIPG, a new therapeutic approach against Diffuse Intrinsic Pontine Glioma which uses peptide-shuttles to carry the effective chemotherapeutic drug to the brain.

Problem to Solve

Diffuse Intrinsic Pontine Glioma (DIPG) is devastating paediatric brain tumor with no cure to date. There is an urgent need to develop innovative treatments for this illnesses.

Currently, the majority of CNS drug candidates are rejected, for their inability to cross the blood brain barrier, meaning that pathologies affecting the CNS such as DIPG are unable to be treated with available effective therapies.

Innovation

G2B technology is composed of 3 families of peptide-shuttles that have been validated in vitro and in vivo. They combine properties such as protease resistance, capacity to transport a wide range of cargoes, low production costs, and low immunogenic potential.

DIPG is a paediatric brain tumor with intact BBB for which there is no cure. G2B-4-DIPG, a modified small molecule conjugated to a peptide shuttle, offers the potential to carry the effective chemotherapeutic drug across the BBB to the site of the tumour, providing new hope against this devastating disease.