Grant: Doctoral Research Award: Canada Graduate Scholarships

Ulcerative colitis (UC) is one form of inflammatory bowel disease that affects ~1% of the Canadian population, with incidence rising especially in children. It is a life-long disease with serious damage to the gut. The drugs that are used to manage UC can cause side effects. They also stop working in about half of UC patients over time. Our bodies use a family of immune proteins called interferon lambdas (IFN-Ls) to keep us safe and get rid of invaders. IFN-Ls help our body fight viruses. They can also promote gut healing and stop overreactive immune cells. We observed that UC patients have dampened IFN-L functions in their gut, but not in their blood, when compared to people without UC. I predict that there are gut-specific factors in UC patients that negatively affect the functions of IFN-L. Most of the previous research studying how IFN-Ls help the gut has been done in animals. In this study, I will analyze gut tissue from both UC and non-UC, male and female, donors. Through my research, I will uncover how IFN-L works naturally in the human gut and what in the UC gut is causing IFN-L to not work properly. Our goal is to show if IFN-Ls can be used to improve gut health and reduce gut damage as a new drug target for UC .