Giovanni Tosi

University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Italy

Title: Gateway to the Brain: Tailored Nanomedicine

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Biography

Giovanni Tosi works on Nanoparticles for CNS delivery and targeting were honored with national prices and awards, and he is author and co-author of more than 100 publications in international journals (of which 5 are reviews and 3 are book chapters) and gave over 200 presentations (invited speaker, oral presentations and posters) in international and national congresses. He participated as collaborator in several Italian projects supported by the Italian Research Ministry as well as International Grant (EU, US, UK grants) in the field of Nanomedicine and Brain Disorders.  He is now collaborating with a broad network of scientists in Italy and mainly around the world.

He currently acts as referee for the top journals in nanotechnology and nanomedicine such as Journal of Controlled Release, Biomaterial, Nanomedicine and many other journals dealing with Nanotechnology, Drug Delivery and Nanomedicine. 

Abstract

The research of non-invasive therapy for the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases is one of the most important topics of the last years by the pharmaceutical technology. Even if less than 1% of both industrial and university research projects on neuroscience displays of a Blood-Brain Barrier (BBB) crossing and CNS targeting aims, the study and progress of drug delivery strategies to cross the BBB are supposed to be widely addressed. Above a wide overview on the most interesting and recent applications of nanomedicines to the CNS targeting, in this talk, the most recent works on poly-lactide-co-glycolide and other polymer-based NPs differently modified for BBB crossing will be reviewed. In particular, different strategies based on different ligands for BBB crossing, as exogenous-like peptides, endogenous-like peptides BBB-receptor antibodies and glyco-peptides will be detailed. In vivo and in vitro results will be commented to underline which mechanism is responsible for BBB crossing, which pathways are exploited for cell entry and specific accumulation-tropism in brain areas and even in cell type are present, dependently on type of ligands. With this talk, we will therefore try to draw an overview of the main advantages of the use of nanomedicine-based approach for innovation in crossing the most “defensive” barrier in our body, with particular relevance to neurodegenerative diseases. Besides these aspects, a critical analysis on the main causes that slow the application of nanomedicine to brain disorders will be discussed along with the identification of possible solutions and possible interventions.  Moreover, a short overview of recently started IMI2 project (IM2PACT) will be described in order to show the idea and the tendency of both academic and industrial research in terms of novel ways and strategies for BBB crossing.