Understanding and improving dietary therapy for Crohn’s Disease
Supervisors:
Prof Simon Milling, School of Infection & Immunity
Prof Konstantinos Gerasimidis, School of Medicine, Dentistry & Nursing
Dr Umer Zeeshan Ijaz, James Watt School of Engineering
Dr Miguel Pineda, School of Molecular Biosciences
Summary:
Crohn’s Disease (CD) is a common and increasingly prevalent chronic inflammatory disease that occurs when an inappropriate immune response is made against the commensal intestinal bacteria. There is no cure. Immunosuppressive treatments can be beneficial, but are effective only in a minority of patients. CD is caused by aberrant responses to the intestinal microbiota. Therefore, targeting intestinal bacteria (microbiota) by making significant alterations to patients’ diet, can induce disease remission in a high proportion of recipients. We have significant expertise in this area, including ongoing and planned clinical trials.
We aim to refine and personalize our therapeutic approach, to improve the efficacy of dietary therapies for CD. This project will use samples collected during our clinical studies to identify the individuals who are most likely to benefit from dietary interventions, and to further refine the intervention. to enable effective treatment of the broadest possible range of patients.
We will achieve this by performing analyses of microbial and immunological data from our recent clinical studies, and by testing the arising hypotheses in laboratory experiments using clinical samples in sophisticated cell-culture systems.
This project will provide excellent training in data analysis, directed towards testing clinically-important hypotheses in a multi-disciplinary environment.