Grant: Master's Award: Canada Graduate Scholarships

Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is a long-term disease that affects the gut, causing pain, diarrhea, fatigue, and weight loss. Patients with IBD experience switches between active phases with inflammation and quiescent phases without inflammation, affecting their quality of life. IBD prevalence has grown, having a global economic impact.The millions of bacteria residing in the gut, termed gut microbiota, contribute to digestion, immune responses, and mental health. IBD has been linked to an altered gut microbiota, including their metabolites and proteases.Bacterial proteases break down proteins and communicate with the rest of the body. Studies suggest IBD patients have altered amounts of proteases, and they can influence gut pain nerves. Pain is the most common symptom in IBD patients. Half of the patients still report high pain levels even when they are in a quiescent phase with no inflammation. This suggests something else is driving the pain. We hypothesize that the protease imbalance in IBD patients contributes to the abdominal pain experienced during both phases of IBD.From many visits over many years, IBD patients have shared their pain scores and fecal samples with our clinical colleagues. We will identify the bacteria and proteases in stool samples from each visit. We will explore if there is a relationship between a patients microbiota and proteases and their self-reported abdominal pain severity. This research is vital because if specific changes in bacteria or proteases are identified, and found to impact pain, potential treatments could be made to return these bacteria and proteases to a healthy state. Ultimately, this research may lead to new ways to reduce symptoms and improve the quality of life of IBD patients.