Hans Christian Cederberg Helms
Assistant professor
CNS Drug Delivery and Barrier Modelling
13, Building: 13-4-423a
2100 København Ø
Primary fields of research
The brain is protected by the skull and is submerged in in a fluid with a constant composition of nutrients and salts. The tight blood vessels of the brain form the blood-brain barrier, which regulates the entry of solutes to the brain fluid. This barrier poses a problem for the brain uptake of medicine from the blood since the cells are lined tightly together forming a seal and possess transport mechanisms to actively pump entruding compounds back to the blood. It is important to investigate if new medicinal compounds can enter the brain before entering expensive clinical trials, when designing drugs for treatment of brain diseases. This is normally investigated in animal studies. This research aims to develop and optimize an easier, cheaper and faster alternative in the form of an in vitro cell model of the blood-brain barrier. This has previously been attempted without success, where especially the physical tightness between the cells has been lacking. At present, we have established a cell model based on cells isolated from blood vessels from calf brains. Optimization of the culture conditions has led to a model with tightness close to the human blood-brain barrier. This model is now utilized in several studies with the aims to investigate different aspects of the blood-brain barrier including how different drug compounds can be designed to cross the barrier.
Teaching
Co-supervisor on masters thesis projects concerning the blood-brain barrier
Bachelors project in pharmaci: Supersing students during development, manufacture and analysis of different drug formulations
Project forskerspire: Research for high school students participating in the national project "forskerspire" on projects concerning the blood-brain barrier.
ID: 9837906
Most downloads
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160
downloads
A bovine in vitro blood-brain barrier model under oxygenglucose deprivation (OGD) condition
Research output: Contribution to conference › Poster › Research
Published -
107
downloads
Rises in intracellular calcium in primary brain pericytes are caused by ATP
Research output: Contribution to conference › Conference abstract for conference › Research › peer-review
Published -
73
downloads
ATP induce intracellular calcium rises in cultures of primary brain pericytes
Research output: Contribution to conference › Conference abstract for conference › Research › peer-review
Published