Mater researchers are investigating a new approach to stop the devastating intestinal scarring caused by Crohn’s disease, backed by a recently awarded $100,000 Propel a Cure for Crohn's Disease Trailblazer grant – one of just two grants awarded globally.
For the millions of people worldwide living with Crohn’s disease, chronic inflammation is often only the beginning of the battle. Around half will eventually develop irreversible intestinal scarring, known as fibrosis. This scarring can cause severe narrowing and bowel obstructions, frequently leaving surgical removal of part of the bowel as the only viable treatment. Because the disease often recurs even after surgery, many patients require multiple operations over their lifetime, leading to serious complications.
Current treatments manage inflammation, but not the irreversible bowel damage it can leave behind. Led by Mater Research's Dr Rabina Giri and Associate Professor Jake Begun, this new research aims to prevent irreversible bowel damage before it starts.
Dr Giri said that one of the biggest unmet needs in Crohn’s disease is preventing the irreversible intestinal scarring that can ultimately lead to surgery.
“By understanding how the gut microbiome contributes to scarring, we hope to identify entirely new ways to prevent irreversible bowel damage before it occurs," Dr Rabina Giri said.," Dr Giri said.
The team's early findings suggest that the bacteria living in our gut may play a much bigger role in Crohn's disease than previously thought. They found that people who go on to develop intestinal scarring appear to have a different mix of gut bacteria from the very early stages of the disease. In contrast, healthy people have beneficial bacteria that produce natural substances which may help protect the bowel from developing scar tissue. These discoveries could open the door to new treatments that target the gut microbiome to prevent irreversible damage before it occurs.
Over the next two years, the researchers will identify and study the natural substances produced by beneficial gut bacteria that appear to protect against intestinal scarring. They will investigate exactly how these substances work in the body and test whether they could form the basis of new treatments to prevent or reduce bowel damage in Crohn's disease.
"Our ultimate goal is to identify microbiome-derived signals that drive or protect against intestinal fibrosis and use that knowledge to develop new ways to prevent or treat this serious complication of Crohn’s disease," Dr Giri said.
By targeting the underlying causes of fibrosis rather than simply managing its consequences, this project could pave the way for entirely new treatments and offer hope that surgery may one day no longer be an inevitable outcome for people living with Crohn's disease.
