Tiny technologies advance neurotherapeutics
- Wits University
Tiny lipid-based nanoparticles could help medicines reach their targets in the brain more effectively for diseases such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's.
Researchers at the Wits Advanced Drug Delivery Platform (WADDP) are engineering tiny drug-delivery systems that could change how medicines are transported to the brain.
One approach uses specially engineered liposomes – microscopic lipid-based nanoparticles – to improve neuronal cells’ uptake of galantamine, a medicine used to treat symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease.
The challenge is not simply finding a drug that works. In neurological disease, researchers also need to get that medicine to the right place, at the right concentration, and keep it there long enough to have an effect.
“Getting medicines to the right place, in the right concentration and for long enough to have an effect remains one of the challenges in treating diseases of the brain,” says WADDP senior researcher Professor Pradeep Kumar.
Kumar presented aspects of WADDP’s work using engineered liposomes and other nano-enabled systems to improve drug delivery in neurotherapeutics at the 2026 Southern African Neuroscience Society Symposium.
“We have thus been investigating ways to address this challenge in Alzheimer’s disease, for example, by engineering the systems that carry the medicine,” he says.
The team has also explored coupling galantamine to lactoferrin, a naturally occurring iron-binding protein. The approach could help deliver the medicine while also targeting excess iron, associated oxidative stress, and cellular damage linked to Alzheimer’s disease.
“Rather than looking only at the medicine itself, we are investigating how we can engineer the vehicle that carries it, potentially influencing where, when and how that medicine acts,” says Kumar.
The work forms part of WADDP’s broader research programme in neurotherapeutics, spanning neurodegeneration and neuroregeneration, including Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease, stroke, traumatic brain injury and nerve damage.
Since 2007, this research has drawn on targeted drug delivery, nanomedicine, functional biomaterials, tissue engineering and regenerative medicine to explore new ways of treating diseases and injuries affecting the nervous system.
Smarter ways to deliver existing medicines
A similar principle underpins WADDP’s work in Parkinson’s disease. Levodopa is a well-established treatment for Parkinson’s, but its absorption and availability in the body can be difficult to control. The team has investigated nano-enabled gastroretentive drug-delivery systems designed to remain in the stomach for longer and provide more sustained delivery of the medicine.
The work also extends into neurovascular disorders, including research into functionalised carbon nanotubes as potential nanomedicine platforms for stroke.
Across these projects, the emphasis is not necessarily on discovering an entirely new drug. Instead, researchers are asking whether existing or emerging therapies can be made more effective by changing how they are carried, released and directed towards their target.
Helping the nervous system repair itself
WADDP’s neurotherapeutics research also extends beyond drug delivery. The team is examining whether it is possible to engineer an environment that helps damaged nervous tissue repair and regenerate.
When neural tissue is injured, scar formation and changes in the surrounding cellular environment can interfere with regeneration. One area of research therefore focuses on manipulating the extracellular matrix – the complex structural and biochemical environment surrounding cells.
“We are now able to manipulate the extracellular matrix with the aim of promoting neuronal recovery and tissue regeneration,” says Kumar.
Researchers have developed three-dimensional scaffolds that mimic features of the natural extracellular matrix, providing cells with physical, architectural and chemical cues that could support repair.
“These biomimetic 3D scaffolds are a potential means of supporting the repair and regeneration of brain tissue,” Kumar says.
The team has also combined medical imaging, rapid image processing and 3D printing to explore the possibility of producing customised neural scaffolds shaped for a particular site of nerve damage.
The longer-term idea is that patient-specific structures could eventually help guide neural regeneration rather than relying on a one-size-fits-all implant.
These principles may have applications across the nervous system. WADDP has also investigated approaches to traumatic spinal-cord injury, where inflammation, scar formation, neuronal degeneration and the physical disruption of nerve pathways combine to make regeneration particularly difficult.
“The challenge in neurotherapeutics is not just the medicine, but getting it to the brain and other neural tissues to provide an instruction,” says Professor Yahya Choonara, Director of WADDP.
“Our work at WADDP engineers the nanomedicine itself to overcome these barriers and support neural cell orchestration and communication for optimal regeneration.”
From laboratory discovery to new therapies
Much of this research remains at an early stage. Moving a new drug-delivery system, biomaterial or regenerative technology from the laboratory towards safe use in patients can take many years and requires extensive testing.
It also depends on collaboration across disciplines. WADDP brings together expertise in pharmaceutical sciences, biomaterials, nanotechnology, neuroscience and clinical research, with support and collaboration across Wits University, the National Research Foundation and the South African Medical Research Council.
That translational focus is also being advanced through WADDP’s Centre for Nanomedicine Translational Research in Infectious Diseases, Cancer and Neurotherapeutics (CENTRIC). Led by WADDP senior researcher Professor Lisa du Toit, the SAMRC-funded centre aims to help move nano-enabled therapeutic discoveries closer towards practical application.
Together, the work reflects a broader shift in neurotherapeutics: from thinking only about which medicine to use, to asking how that medicine can be engineered, delivered and supported to act more precisely within one of the most complex systems in the human body.