The Kenneth Rainin Foundation believes that early support for innovative ideas can lead to improvements in preventing, diagnosing and treating Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD). In 2022, our grantees made exciting progress on insights and treatments toward improving quality of life for those living with the disease. We responded to ongoing uncertainty and evolving challenges in the biomedical research landscape and remained focused on advancing equity in the field.

Ongoing pandemic impacts have led to an evolving and uncertain landscape for scientists globally. Many research labs and institutions are stabilizing their operations after significant pandemic disruptions. The field is also leveraging the flexibility of hybrid approaches to accessing and connecting with the research community. Yet accumulated pandemic-driven disruptions continue to delay research progress, particularly in clinical trials. Turnover and shortages in lab and hospital staffing have driven the need to prioritize care over research. Researchers also contended with pandemic-related hesitancy in recruiting participants for studies at health facilities. Internationally, overburdened health care systems are forcing researchers to rethink their project aims and funding assumptions.

To support our grantees, we stay connected and listened to ensure our responses are informed by their experiences and priorities. Our continued flexibility, such as no-cost extensions, applies to our own practices as well. Pandemic-driven change and uncertainty is requiring all of us to adjust to an ever-evolving landscape.

Our 2022 Innovator Awards highlight novel ideas and therapeutic avenues to improve the lives of people with IBD. Grantees include an equal number of early career and veteran IBD investigators and reflect a spectrum of biomedical science areas. Projects address complex research puzzles, including those related to “therapy resistance,” the gut-brain connection and the microbiome:

• Adebowale Bamidele, PhD, Mayo Clinic, aims to identify the metabolic vulnerabilities of IBD CD4 T cells to guide the development of new therapies. His lab is especially focused on IBD patients who are resistant to available treatments.
• Immunologist Ruaidhrí Jackson, PhD, Harvard Medical School, studies IBD-driven disruptions on the “second brain” functions of the enteric nervous system. He is investigating preliminary findings that this enteric nervous system acts to inform other organs as both a protective mechanism and an inflammatory complication in IBD.
• At Washington University School of Medicine, Ta-Chiang Liu, MD, PhD and Umang Jain, PhD are focused on D. hansenii, a pathogenic fungi unique to Crohn’s disease patients. Their collaborative study aims to identify a link between the most common Crohn’s disease-related genetic mutation and fungal infection.

Playing the long game is inherent to scientific research to cure complex chronic diseases like IBD. Our early-stage funding sets in motion research with the potential for exciting breakthroughs. We were thrilled that our grantees gained traction and recognition for their research. Two high profile journals published findings connected to early-stage research supported through our Innovator Awards Program in 2015.

• Iliyan Iliev’s lab at Weill Cornell Medicine progressed to more variant-specific insights about Candida albicans yeast, reported in “Nature.” Their analysis of individual strains of C. albicans in people with and without ulcerative colitis suggest avenues for personalized therapeutics.
• Kate Jeffrey’s former lab at Massachusetts General Hospital built on research we supported in 2015. Her collaborative work investigated the protective roles of viruses that make up the enteric virome. That led to a large cross-disciplinary study, with findings published in “Science.”

The Rainin Foundation’s investments have also been vital to advancing patient-centered technologies from concept to clinical trials. G-Tech Medical’s wearable patch, which monitors gut motility, gained pre-market clearance from the FDA and attracted interest from a major pharmaceutical company. They are also launching numerous clinical trials that will test different applications for the patch. And Dr. Ali Rezaie and his team at Cedars Sinai finalized their device design, which uses ultraviolet (UV) light to treat ulcerative proctitis. They are moving toward their first in-human trial with their partner clinic in Santiago, Chile.

Each year our Innovations Symposium brings scientists together to share new ideas and exchange diverse perspectives in IBD research. Over 300 people from around the world tuned in to our 2022 virtual Symposium. Seasoned experts and emerging innovators were joined by students, clinicians, funders and editors of science and health journals.

The event showcased novel and cross-disciplinary insights that we hope generate new avenues for research and collaboration. Presenters shared an array of findings in immunity and inflammation, healing and diet and the gut microbiome. They also highlighted progress in translating biomedical research into clinical applications and therapeutics that target patient well-being. The Foundation’s Scientific Advisory Board facilitated panel discussions and question and answer sessions. Their diverse research perspectives are essential to shaping our annual Symposium.

Earlier in the year, the Scientific Advisory Board welcomed Dr. Janelle Ayres, a molecular and systems physiologist at the Salk Institute. Her provocative insights about bacterial infections and immune response have profound implications for new therapies. Longtime advisor Dr. Bana Jabri, an advocate for translational science, early career researchers and gender equity, was named Board Co-Chair. The Advisory Board bid farewell to Co-Chair Dr. Tejal Desai and longtime member Dr. Michael Fischbach. We are grateful for the invaluable guidance they provided to our Health grantmaking and strategies.

Our journey toward greater equity in our grantmaking and in the biomedical research field continued. The Foundation’s new learning and evaluation framework defines and clarifies our desired impacts on biomedical research. We are grateful to the cohort of strategic partners, advisors and grantees who helped ensure the evaluation would be equitable and meaningful to us and the field at large. We identified three strategic indicators to guide our Health grantmaking and catalyze research that:

• Expands the field of IBD researchers
• Leads to additional or increased funding from other sources
• Advances research to benefit patients through new collaborations, published findings and clinical trials

As part of our learning and evaluation process, we will continue engaging our colleagues and partners to better understand their needs and aspirations.

We also participated in a small cohort of biomedical research funders through the Open and Equitable Model Funding Program. Our aim is to make grantmaking practices, peer review processes and the resulting research outputs more transparent, inclusive and equitable. Using a community of practice model, our learning cohort is testing a variety of interventions to share lessons learned with the wider community.

To continue to address equity gaps in our grantmaking, our Health Program staff participated in unconscious bias training. We also expanded our outreach for grant opportunities and began building relationships with historically underrepresented researchers and research institutions. We are committed to advancing this work to make meaningful change.

INNOVATOR AWARDS

Grants support an international pool of early-career and seasoned researchers to study untested ideas that could lead to breakthrough discoveries about IBD. Learn more about the 2022 Innovator Award grantees.

INNOVATOR AWARDS – CONTINUED SUPPORT

Grants support an international pool of early-career and seasoned researchers to study untested ideas that could lead to breakthrough discoveries about IBD. Research teams who demonstrate significant progress toward their original goals are eligible for up to two years of additional support. Learn more about the 2022 Innovator Award grantees.

SYNERGY AWARDS – CONTINUED SUPPORT

Grants support cross-disciplinary teams of researchers who are pursuing collaborative projects aimed at improving the prediction and prevention of IBD. Research teams who demonstrate significant progress toward their original goals are eligible for up to two years of additional support. Learn more about the 2022 Synergy Award grants.