Semipermeable Membrane Graft for Bypassing Blood-Brain Barrier
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Solution Overview
Problem
The blood-brain-barrier (BBB) restricts the delivery of therapeutic agents to the central nervous system (CNS), limiting the effectiveness of treatments for neurological disorders due to its exclusion of polar, charged, and macromolecular agents, which are often ineffective in reaching the CNS.
Innovation Solution
A semipermeable epithelial membrane (SEM) graft is placed in the skull base, allowing pharmaceutical agents administered onto the SEM graft or in an endonasal reservoir to bypass the BBB and enter the CNS, facilitating the treatment of neurological disorders and pain.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Object-affected harmful factors
If the blood-brain-barrier is used to protect the CNS, then safety is improved, but drug delivery capability deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a semipermeable membrane graft as an intermediary structure placed in the skull base. This membrane acts as a mediator that allows selective passage of pharmaceutical agents from the nasal cavity into the CNS, bypassing the restrictive blood-brain-barrier while maintaining controlled access. The membrane serves as a bridge between the external administration route and the protected CNS environment.
Solution Approach 2:
The invention segments the delivery pathway by creating a separate access route through the nasal cavity and skull base, independent of the blood-brain-barrier. By placing a semipermeable membrane in this segmented pathway, the system allows direct delivery of polar, charged, and macromolecular agents to the CNS without requiring these substances to cross the intact blood-brain-barrier.
2Reliability
If polar, charged, and macromolecular agents are used to treat neurological disorders, then therapeutic effectiveness is improved, but ability to cross BBB deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The semipermeable membrane graft serves as an intermediary that enables polar, charged, and macromolecular therapeutic agents to reach the CNS without needing to cross the blood-brain-barrier. The membrane's selective permeability properties allow these otherwise excluded substances to pass through while maintaining controlled delivery to the target site.
Solution Approach 2:
The invention extracts the delivery barrier function from the blood-brain-barrier by introducing a separate semipermeable membrane in the nasal-skull base pathway. This extraction allows therapeutic agents to bypass the BBB's restrictive properties entirely, enabling direct access to the CNS through an alternative route that doesn't impose the same molecular size and charge restrictions.
3Ease of operation
If pharmaceutical agents are administered systemically, then ease of administration is improved, but targeted delivery to CNS deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The semipermeable membrane graft in the nasal cavity serves as an intermediary structure that enables targeted CNS delivery through a simplified administration route. Pharmaceutical agents can be applied topically or via inhalation to the membrane, which then facilitates their passage into the CNS, combining ease of administration with precise targeting.
Solution Approach 2:
The invention applies local quality by placing the semipermeable membrane at a specific location (skull base/nasal cavity) where it creates a localized portal for CNS delivery. This localized approach allows agents to be administered easily to a specific site while achieving concentrated, targeted delivery to the CNS, avoiding the systemic distribution that would occur with conventional administration routes.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
This method enables the targeted delivery of pharmaceutical agents to the CNS, reducing toxicity and adverse side effects in non-target tissues, increasing the efficiency of drug delivery, and providing sustained release formulations for prolonged therapeutic effects.
Implementation Method 1
a semipermeable epithelial membrane (SEM) graft can be successfully placed in the skull base of a patient. The placement of the SEM graft in this location allows therapeutic agent(s), placed onto the SEM graft (on the sinus or nasal cavity side), to enter the CNS of the subject
Data Source
AI summary
Provided are methods of delivering at least one pharmaceutical agent to the central nervous system (CNS) of a subject, methods of treating a neurological disorder or pain in a subject that include administering at least one pharmaceutical agent onto a SEM graft in the skull base of the subject. Also provided are methods of treating a neurological disorder or pain in a subject that include forming a SEM graft in the skull base of the subject and administering at least one pharmaceutical agent onto the SEM graft in the skull base of the subject. Also provided are methods of forming a SEM graft in the skull base of a subject, compositions for administration onto a SEM graft in the skull base or into an endonasal reservoir or endonasal reservoir device in a subject, and devices for administering such compositions onto a SEM graft in the skull base of a subject.