Britta Engelhardt is the coordinator of the Marie Sklodowska Curie Trainin Network BtRAIN funded by the European Commission Horizon 2020 Programme. At the University of Bern this program is a tight collaboration between the TKI and the Interfaculty Bioinformatics Unit.
In their function to protect the central nervous system (CNS) from neurotoxic compounds the brain barriers block delivery of drugs to the CNS thus hindering proper diagnosis and effective treatment of neurological disorders. The high complexity of the brain barriers has severely hampered progress in the CNS therapeutic market. BtRAIN bridges this gap by creating unique knowledge on the vertebrate brain barrier signature genes and their specific role in regulating brain barriers function in development, health, ageing and disease. This is prerequisite to overcome the unmet need for the development of diagnostic or therapeutic tools at the level of the brain barriers.
BtRAIN will thus create a truly novel next generation of brain barriers researchers, who have integrated the trans-disciplinary expertise including experimental methodology, thinking and language provided within BtRAIN.
The early state researcher involved in this project is Luca Marchetti in the group of Britta Engelhardt.
