Grant: Catalyst Grant: Environments, Genes and Chronic Disease

Crohn's Disease is an incurable chronic disease cause by inflammation along the gastrointestinal tract. The inflammation leads to life-long symptoms that include abdominal pain, nausea, and diarrhea. Disease is managed in people with Crohn's Disease by blocking inflammatory responses. However, drugs currently available are not effective in about 10% of people with Crohn's Disease and we predict that they will eventually stop working for up to 30% of people with Crohn's Disease. New treatments are urgently needed. For most people, one gene does not cause disease, but genetic studies have taught us that small changes in many different genes can cause changes in gene functions that make some people more likely to develop disease. Even though we have identified 71 different genes associated with Crohn's Disease, we do not know how they contribute to inflammation. Stuart Turvey's and Laura Sly's research laboratories at BC Children's Hospital, University of British Columbia, have joined forces to investigate the role of specific Crohn's Disease genes in inflammation. We have identified one gene that leads to increased inflammatory responses and key proteins that regulate that response. In our next steps, we are going to examine all of the genes in that gene family that have been associated with Crohn's Disease (6 in total) to see if they also lead to the same inflammatory response. These studies will allow us to identify a group of people with Crohn's Disease that have a specific inflammatory signature. Excitingly, these people may be treatable with a drug that is already used in the clinic to treat people with inflammatory diseases, but which has never been used to treat Crohn's Disease.