New Funding for Ultrasound Projects
“By using ultrasound technology, we can localize and vibrate the tumor, ablate it and monitor its ablation during treatment, all by using a single, non-contact, compact device,” she said.
Co-Investigators for this grant are Columbia University Medical Center colleagues Kathie-Ann Joseph, MD, of the Department of Surgery, Eliza Pile-Spellman, MD, of the Department of Radiology, and Thomas Ludwig, PhD, of the Department of Pathology.
The second grant of $452,000 is a pilot grant from the Kinetics Foundation to develop an ultrasound-mediated drug delivery system for treatment of Parkinson’s disease through opening of the blood-brain barrier (BBB). Most therapeutic agents available for treating central nervous system diseases cannot penetrate the BBB, the brain’s natural defense.
“The blood-brain barrier impedes entry of virtually all molecules from blood capillaries to brain tissue,” said Professor Konofagou, “so that potent neurologically active substances and drugs are ineffective simply because they cannot be delivered to where they are most needed.” Professor Konofagou and her group’s solution to opening the blood-brain barrier is with focused ultrasound (FUS), a non-invasive and promising technique.
“The goal of the method is to noninvasively and transiently open the blood-brain barrier only in the region that suffers from the disease, while leaving the surrounding healthy brain intact," she said. "So far, we have shown that we can achieve this through the intact skull and skin of the mouse and deliver molecules of pharmacologically-relevant sizes, i.e., of several nanometers. We are now focusing on the FUS-induced delivery of antibodies and neurotrophic factors for the noninvasive treatment of Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease, respectively.”
Dr. Konofagou also recently was an invited speaker on imaging the mechanics and electromechanics in animal and human hearts in vivo at the International Symposium on Advanced Biomedical Ultrasound in Sendai, Miyagi, Japan.
