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Multiple sclerosis (MS), a chronic inflammatory disease of the spinal cord and brain, is the most common disabling neurological disease in young adults.
Chronic pain is a common debilitating condition associated with MS. Pain symptoms that arise from damage to the brain and spinal cord, such as facial pain, are highly prevalent and unfortunately, still lack effective treatments. Most current medications for chronic pain are delivered throughout the entire body, are only partially effective, and are associated with frequent severe side effects.
Using a laboratory model of MS, this project will involve studying a new approach for targeted delivery of a pain-relieving drug to reduce facial pain symptoms. The team will selectively target facial sensory nerve cells with gold nanoparticles coupled to an approved drug for pain modulation to achieve specific and controlled delivery of the drug to the brain.
The research outcomes will significantly advance the development of new selective drugs that could overcome the limitations of current drug delivery in chronic pain associated with MS.
Associate Professor Gila Moalem-Taylor and her team have studied how gold nanoparticles and nerve transporters can be used to carry pain medication into the nervous system. This approach has the advantage of being able to provide lower doses of medication to precise areas of the nervous system that are responsible for sensing pain. This is different to traditional methods where medication is delivered to the entire body, which will reduce the side effects of the medicine and increase the effectiveness of pain relief at targeted areas.
Early findings have shown the nanoparticles are taken up by sensory nerve cells in a laboratory model. Further studies using laboratory models have started to observe how these nanoparticles are distributed within the nervous system after they are administered to the skin on the face. These studies have revealed that pain-sensing nerve cells are particularly good at absorbing these nanoparticles and transporting them further into the brain. This strongly supports that nanoparticles can be an efficient means of delivering small doses of pain medications and offers promising implications for pain management strategies in people with MS.
Over the next 12 months, Associate Professor Moalem-Taylor and her team will continue studying nanoparticles as a method for delivering pain medications in laboratory models of MS and without MS.
Wang, M. Hassan, N. Kapoor‐Kaushik, L. Livni, B. Musrie, J. Tang, Z. Mahmud, S. Lai, P. R. Wich, V. Ananthanarayanan, G. Moalem‐Taylor, G. Mao. ‘Neural Tracing Protein‐Functionalized Nanoparticles Capable of Fast Retrograde Axonal Transport in Live Neurons’. Small 2024, 2311921. https://doi.org/10.1002/smll.202311921 (in press)
Updated 31 March 2024
$250,000
2023
3 years
