The European Union has donated €10 million to study the barrier that protects nerves.

Studying the barrier that protects the body's peripheral nerves , responsible for movement, sensation, and organ function, and how to intervene when this defense is compromised, as occurs in various disorders: this is the goal of the Minerva project, which, along with 65 others, won one of the European Research Council's ERC Synergy Grants. The initiative, awarded €10 million, will be led by an Italian researcher, Dario Bonanomi of the San Raffaele Hospital in Milan.

The barrier that protects the peripheral nerve network, called the blood-nerve barrier, is still poorly understood and studied. "The lack of in-depth knowledge of the blood-nerve barrier limits the development of effective treatments and prevents targeted intervention," says Bonanomi.

"Minerva was created precisely to fill this gap: understanding the structure and function of the barrier," the researcher continues, "means opening new therapeutic avenues for millions of patients who currently live with disabling symptoms and few treatment options."

The group, which also includes researchers from the French National Institute of Health and Medical Research, the Estonian University of Tartu, and the British University of Oxford, will therefore study the cellular and molecular composition of the barrier and the alterations that occur in pathological conditions.

Thanks to this knowledge, the team will be able to develop a new class of synthetic molecules capable of crossing the barrier and delivering drugs directly.