- Neurology/Neuro Disorders
- Alzheimer's Disease/Dementia
- Brain/Intracranial
- Cancer
Bjoern Bauer, PhD
Professor
One in four people worldwide - over 1.5 billion people - suffer from brain disorders, including depression, infection, trauma, stroke, seizures, dementia, and tumors. Despite this huge demand for treatments, delivery of drugs into the brain to treat these disorders is greatly impaired by the blood-brain barrier.
The blood-brain barrier is the interface between blood and brain that controls what goes in and comes out of the brain. Anatomically, the blood-brain barrier is made of endothelial cells forming a complex vascular network that supplies the brain with oxygen and nutrients, and disposes of carbon dioxide and wastes.
Recent studies show that the blood-brain barrier is affected by brain disorders and itself plays a role in causing brain disease. Therefore, understanding blood-brain barrier function is critical for devising new therapeutic strategies to enhance brain drug delivery, improve brain protection, and treat brain disorders.
Currently, we study the role of the blood-brain barrier in three disorders: epilepsy, Alzheimer’s disease, and brain cancer.
Expertise
Positions
- Professor, Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences
Education
- Postdoctoral Fellowship NIEHS/NIH
- Ph.D. University of Heidelberg
- B.S. Pharmacy (5 Year Program) University of Heidelberg, Germany
We wish to remember and honor those who inhabited this Commonwealth before the arrival of the Europeans. Briefly occupying these lands were the Osage, Wyndott tribe, and Miami peoples. The Adena and Hopewell peoples, who are recognized by the naming of the time period in which they resided here, were here more permanently. Some of their mounds remain in the Lexington area, including at UK’s Adena Park.
In more recent years, the Cherokee occupied southeast Kentucky, the Yuchi southwest Kentucky, the Chickasaw extreme western Kentucky and the Shawnee central Kentucky including what is now the city of Lexington. The Shawnee left when colonization pushed through the Appalachian Mountains. Lower Shawnee Town ceremonial grounds are still visible in Greenup County.
We honor the first inhabitants who were here, respect their culture, and acknowledge the presence of their descendants who are here today in all walks of life including fellow pharmacists and healthcare professionals.