About the Special Issue

Neurodegenerative diseases (e.g., Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis etc.) are characterized by the stepwise demise of neuronal cells. Despite tremendous efforts to understand the pathogenesis and to improve clinical therapy and outcome, a cure for these diseases still does not appear at the horizon in the foreseeable future. Other diseases affecting the brain are CNS tumors, brain stroke, and neuroinflammation. The curative situation here is devastating as well. The treatment of brain diseases is frequently hampered by the blood-brain barrier; it prevents the entry of harmful xenobiotic compounds into the healthy brain, but it also may represent a major obstacle for therapeutic drugs to reach the diseased brain.

A whole series of interesting scientific concepts have been developed over the last few years to address the penetrance and metabolism of drugs aimed at combating diseases affecting the CNS. They provide new perspectives for better treatment outcomes: CNS-targeting approaches include a large panel of therapeutics including natural and synthetic small molecules, nanoparticles, gene therapeutic strategies.

The current special issue, provides a forum to open an interdisciplinary discussion for scientists and clinicians from various disciplines to report on innovative and prosperous concepts to better understand the cellular and molecular mechanisms of brain drug penetration and metabolism. A further interest is on innovative strategies for drug treatment that have been developed in recent years. We welcome manuscripts from diverse fields such as pharmacology (of synthetic and natural compounds), medicinal chemistry, cell and molecular biology, systems and network pharmacology, and all related disciplines in medicine dealing with drugs targeting the brain.

In short, the objective of this special issue is to present the state of the art, ranging from basic research to translational and clinical aspects. This special issue should enable the reader to gain essential insights from current cutting-edge research.  

Keywords: blood-brain barrier; cell biology; targeted therapy; medicinal chemistry; molecular biology; pharmacology; oncology; neurology; psychiatry

Call for Papers