Label-free digital pathology and spatially resolved transcriptomics for the identification of novel biomarkers and therapeutic targets in inflammatory bowel diseases.

There is still no medical cure for inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD) and the clinical management is challenging. In particular, differentiating between Crohn’s disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC) and predicting the clinical course or the response to therapy is difficult.
In this study, we aim to characterize tissue samples from IBD and control patients with a new diagnostic approach using infrared (IR) light and providing a molecular fingerprint of the disease. It is our goal to identify specific diagnostic fingerprints for CD and UC, for the prediction of the clinical course and the treatment response in patients. Finally, we will use a laser-based technique to obtain areas with specific molecular fingerprints from the tissues. Such material will be analyzed for all expressed genes with so called next-generation sequencing to determine the molecular changes associated with disease-specific fingerprints. Thereby, we hope to identify new diagnostic tools and targets for future therapy.