Imitating nature to improve health

Regenerating skin or delivering medication to specific areas of our body is now possible thanks to the inspiration scientists draw from nature. Three projects supported by the CaixaResearch calls for Research and Innovation in Health proposals are exploring whether animals such as mussels, zebrafish or bees hold some of the keys to treating diseases that pose a challenge to the international medical community.

Over billions of years of evolution, nature has developed solutions that enable living beings to adapt to their environment and survive. Can humans learn from those with proven experience in creating innovative and efficient solutions? That is precisely what biomimicry does – a discipline focused on improving human life by studying and replicating biological structures and their functions.

The fact is that many of the answers to the challenges we have today could be found by looking to nature, just as Leonardo da Vinci did when he drew inspiration from birds to design flying machines, or Alexander Fleming, whose discovery of penicillin came from observing how a fungus inhibited bacterial growth – leading to the development of antibiotics and revolutionising medicine.

In the biomedical field, biomimicry has had a significant impact in recent years, achieving important advances for human health. Scientists have succeeded in developing biocompatible materials, made great progress in regenerative medicine and even enabled certain drugs to reach specific areas of the body for targeted treatment.

A poison that crosses barriers

Delivering treatment precisely to the location of tumour cells is a major challenge in many oncological diseases. In this regard, researchers from Gate2Brain, a spin-off of Sant Joan de Déu Hospital, the IRB Barcelona and the University of Barcelona, have designed a peptide carrier capable of transporting drugs to the brain and crossing the blood-brain barrier (BBB). This technology will enhance the treatment of brain diseases, including paediatric brain cancer, by optimising drug delivery to this organ.

While several drugs had previously demonstrated strong antitumour activity, all had failed in clinical trials because they could not cross the BBB to reach the tumour. “It’s a protective cellular barrier that only allows certain molecules from the circulating blood to enter the central nervous system, in order to prevent the entry of pathogens and other harmful substances,” explains Dr Meritxell Teixidó, CEO and co-founder of Gate2Brain. The company collaborates with the Childhood Cancer Research Unit – ”la Caixa” Foundation at Sant Joan de Déu Hospital.

 

 

 

The research team led by Teixidó –which received support from RecerCaixa, CaixaImpulse Validate and CaixaImpulse Consolidate– studied the potential of peptides found in scorpion and bee venom to function as molecular shuttles. “We were looking for peptides, which are very small proteins, that could act as molecular shuttles to transport drugs to the brain. We found that bees, like many other animals, produce a shuttle peptide in their venom that carries its toxin to the central nervous system, but which could also be used to deliver drugs for treatment,” she explains. “These shuttles don’t just pass between the BBB cells, which are tightly sealed, but rather enter them and exit on the other side into the brain parenchyma,” she adds.

In general, improving drug delivery to the brain brings significant benefits for the patient, as administering the precise dose enhances treatment effectiveness and reduces side effects.

Moreover, the results obtained have the potential to be applied to other therapeutic agents and biological barriers, with significant clinical implications. “There are many drug candidates for brain diseases, but 98% will require some kind of shuttle. Our technology could be applied to many of them,” confirms the researcher.

In November 2024, Gate2Brain reached a decisive milestone in the fight against paediatric brain tumours when it received Orphan Drug Designation (ODD) from the European Medicines Agency (EMA) for its innovative product, G2B-002. The project is currently at the regulatory preclinical stage, transitioning from trials in rodents to non-rodents (specifically pigs). “Although the clinical trial is planned for three years from now, we’re at a highly significant moment for this technology and our first product,” adds Dr Teixidó.

 

 

 

 

 

Her team is working tirelessly to usher in a new era of therapeutic options in an area of high unmet need. “In recent years, great progress has been made in diagnosing brain tumours, in developing more advanced therapies, but most importantly, in understanding these tumours to enable much more personalised medicine. Shuttles could be the key ingredient that helps these therapies reach their target more effectively,” she concludes.

 

Article & Video by la Caixa “Foundation”