New European Consortium Will Seek Ways to Disrupt Disease Development and Begin Moving Innovative Therapies into Clinics
September 16, 2014 (New York, NY) – Today, The Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust announced $6 million in new grants to establish a European research consortium that will investigate the key factors known to lead to the development of Crohn’s disease. Over the next three years, the grantees – two top clinical centers in France and Spain and Germany’s leading microbial research institute – will analyze how the immune system interacts with the microbiome, and explore ways to provide effective and safer stem-cell based therapies to disrupt the progression of Crohn’s.
Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis, collectively known as inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), affect an estimated five million people globally, a number that is increasing rapidly.
“With access to cell therapy models and unique patient cohorts, this consortium brings together unique and complimentary resources that will enable it to conduct cutting-edge studies to determine how genetic factors, the immune system and the microbiome interact together to develop Crohn’s disease,” said Jim O’Sullivan, Program Director of the Helmsley Charitable Trust’s IBD and Crohn’s Disease Program.
The Helmsley program has allocated nearly $130 million over five years to institutions in the United States, Canada, Europe and Israel, and brings together the world’s leading medical and scientific research facilities in IBD to develop novel therapeutic approaches to digestive diseases.
The new consortium will be led by the following scientists and institutions:
- Matthew Allez, MD, PhD, head of the Department of Gastroenterology and Professor of Medicine at Saint-Louis Institute. His group focuses on the management of immune-mediated IBD and digestive tumors. The research unit at Saint-Louis Institute is integrated into the Institut National de la Sante et de la Recherche Medical (INSERM) in France.
- Azucena Salas, PhD, Investigator, Department of Experimental Gastroenterology at the Institut d’Investigaciones Biomedicas August Pi i Sunyer (IDIBAPS) and Associate Professor of Immunology, University of Barcelona. IDIBAPS is a premier public research center dedicated to translational research in biomedicine. IDIBAPS is one of only two centers in the world to have performed hematopoietic stem cell transplants (HSCT) in more than 20 patients.
- Dirk Haller, PhD, chair of Nutrition and Immunology at the Research Centre for Nutrition and Food Sciences of the Technical University of Munich (TUM), one of the leading universities in Europe. The institution is known for targeting the promotion of groundbreaking, interdisciplinary research. The main areas of research are dedicated to the understanding of gut health and the pathogenesis of inflammation-related chronic disorders such as IBD.
At a time when the lack of effective treatments for Crohn’s patients has fostered wide interest in regenerative medicines – like hematopoietic stem cell transplants (typically a bone marrow transplant) and epithelial stem cells – this new collaboration of scientists presents an opportunity to overcome limitations in current therapeutic approaches and to begin moving innovative cell-based therapies into the clinic. The title of the consortium’s project is IBD Over Time: Understanding and Changing the Course of Crohn’s Disease.
Crohn’s disease (CD) is a chronic inflammatory condition, starting in adolescence or early adulthood in the majority of patients, progressing to intestinal tissue damage over time. Accumulating evidence suggests that CD results from inflammation caused by an overzealous immune response to intestinal microbes or environmental factors in genetically susceptible individuals.
Evidence also suggests that mechanisms responsible for inflammation and damage in the intestinal tract are not necessarily the same over the course of the disease, which may have important implications for therapy. Treatments to change the disease course and repair damaged tissue are greatly needed.
Remember to “join the cavalry” by subscribing to Devin’s content here.
