Introduction & Acknowledgements

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Introduction There are many diseases of the brain (e.g. Alzheimer’s Disease, Parkinson’s Disease, Multiple Sclerosis, Stroke, Brain tumors). In addition, there are many potent drugs available for several of these diseases. However, these cannot effectively be used since they do not reach the brain in sufficient therapeutic concentrations because of the presence of barriers in the brain (e.g. the blood-brain barrier and the blood-cerebrospinal fluid barrier). This book contains the papers of a timely symposium that was generously sponsored by the Esteve Foundation, presenting the academic, the pharmaceutical industrial, and the clinical point of view to overcome these barriers and to treat brain diseases effectively.

Acknowledgements I would like to thank Dr. Sergio Erill and Dr. Fèlix Bosch and the staff at the Esteve Foundation for their major contribution to making this symposium possible in an intimate environment. In addition, I am grateful to the speakers who shared their data and thoughts in the presentations and discussions to make this symposium fruitful also. The contribution of the discussants was also well appreciated. And last but not at least thanks to Justine Knowles and the Elsevier team, who were very helpful with these proceedings. Albertus G. de Boer