UNC Researchers Pioneer New Treatment for Parkinson’s Disease

Scientists at UNC have pioneered a new method of treating patients with Parkinson’s disease.

Dr. Elena Batrakova is an Associate Professor at the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy’s Center for Nanotechnology in Drug Delivery. She says a group of researchers that she has led have discovered a way to use the body’s natural defense to treat patients with Parkinson’s by targeting the areas on inflammation in the brain causing the disease.

“White blood cells, as a part of the immune system,” she says, “they’re attracted to this inflammation. So we can take these cells, load them with the drug which we need to heal these tissues and then inject back into the patient.”

Batrakova says using the white blood cells as transportation allows for more efficient and effective treatment for the patients.

“They will squeeze between the cells, get through the blood-brain barrier – which is very difficult to penetrate,” she says, “and deliver this potent drug to the inflammation site and protect neurons against this disease.”

She says they are always on the lookout to use what is already happening in our bodies to aid treatment methods.

“We love to use natural mechanisms, because we recognize that whatever humans can do it’s very low compared to what nature already uses in us,” she says. “So we want to use this natural mechanism, harness this mechanism, to deliver this drug to the brain.

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Batrakova says that the scientists saw a development they were not expecting during their experiments. They were able to load white blood cells with drugs to help the patients, but after seeing the effectiveness of this treatment, the scientists noticed that the patient’s body was starting to replicate the treatment.

“Neurons, astrocytes and all other cells of the brain started producing this drug themselves,” she says, “and that gives very prolonged effect and very potent powerful effect.”

The North Carolina Biotechnology Center awarded a $50,000 Technology Enhancement Grant to the School to help develop the technology into a viable treatment that can be licensed and commercialized.

Batrakova says she hopes this treatment method will help patients in the future with Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s live better lives with the diseases that have touched so many.

“I really hope that, in several years, I would be able to meet a patient – Parkinson’s disease patient or an Alzheimer’s disease patient,” she says, “who will look in my eyes and say, ‘You helped me. Thank you so much.’”