Gene therapists have been experimenting with genetically modified SV-40 virus as a vector for many years.  Neurologists have known for some time that the sugar alcohol mannitol relaxed the blood-brain barrier.  Now, researchers at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia have joined these two techniques and shown that, in mice, the mannitol allows a ten fold increase in the vector reaching the central nervous system.  This raises hopes that an SV-40 delivery strategy can present therapeutic genes to the brains of Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s patients by a simple infusion-on an outpatient basis.  Some day.      MORE