Crohn’s colitis that does not respond to medical therapy is treated surgically with removal of the colon and rectum and creation of a permanent end ileostomy. This can be devastating for some patients and is fraught with potential surgical morbidity, and even disease recurrence in the small intestine in a third of patients. Mesenchymal stem […]
Although there are many drugs available for the treatment of IBD, most patients do not respond long-term to any one drug. One possible reason is that the condition we call “IBD” likely represents many distinct diseases, rather than simply just ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease, and each subtype may require a different treatment. Here we […]
The goal of this collaborative proposal is to create a novel 120,000 peptide chip for use in the diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment of Crohn’s disease. The peptides will be both random and specific to gut bacterial proteins implicated in complicated Crohn’s disease. Patients with Crohn’s disease have a distinctive pattern of antibody binding to random […]
NOD2 (nucleotide-binding oligomerization domain-containing protein 2) is one of the most prominent risk factors in Crohn’s disease (CD), but the chemical mechanisms by which NOD2 mutations gives rise to CD is unclear. NOD2 is a proposed sensor of bacterial cell wall fragments that when mutated results in intestinal inflammation. However, the specific commensal bacteria that […]
Humans evolved with, and continue to harbor, trillions of microorganisms living inside or on our bodies. As a result, these microbes play fundamental roles in our health. The last 20 years of research has focused almost exclusively on our resident bacteria. New technologies have enabled identification of viruses within the intestine, i.e. “the virome”. Moreover, […]
There is a critical need for non-invasive tests of Crohn’s disease activity to effectively guide diagnosis and therapy. Changes in the gut bacteria both reflect and contribute to inflammation in Crohn’s disease; however, current diagnostic test including invasive endoscopy or imaging procedures do not provide functional insight into the contribution to the underlying pathogenesis. Here, […]
Patients with IBD most commonly suffer from diarrhea. However, some IBD subjects also experience bouts of constipation as well. We propose that viral infections that humans acquire through insect bites (mosquitos and ticks) can infect cells that innervate the intestines and control bowel movements. We found that the immune system recognizes these infected cells and […]
The goal of this collaborative proposal is to create a novel 120,000 peptide chip for use in the diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment of Crohn’s disease. The peptides will be both random and specific to gut bacterial proteins implicated in complicated Crohn’s disease. Patients with Crohn’s disease have a distinctive pattern of antibody binding to random […]
Intestinal Bowel Diseases (IBD) affect millions of lives worldwide. However, therapeutic options for IBD treatment are limited. In this proposal, building upon our previous findings, we propose to examine an important protein called ARTS, which has never-before been studied in connection to IBD. We have found that ARTS is able to coordinate the cellular suicide […]
