A non-invasive predictive tool to optimize treatment in IBD patients

Individualized prognosis of clinical course, complications and drug response

Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) includes Crohn’s disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC). Both are increasingly common, chronic illnesses, currently affecting nearly 1 million patients in Europe. CD and UC affect patients early in life seriously impairing their quality of life and resulting in enormous personal, social and economic costs.

There is evidence suggesting that genetic factors play a key role in IBD pathogenesis, pointing towards a polygenic mode of inheritance for CD and UC. However, to date studies have only addressed the influence of single mutations on IBD, resulting in a poor prediction of clinical course or response to therapy in individual patients. A better understanding of these factors will lead to a clearer understanding of pathogenesis and to better treatment.

The IBDchip Project will develop an easy to use DNA array. This non-invasive tool will allow the simultaneous analysis of around 100 relevant mutations to predict the clinical evolution, the risk of developing IBD-related complications, and the likelihood of responding to certain drugs for each IBD patient.

The main outcome of this project will be to provide doctors for the first time with a non-invasive predictive tool to optimize treatment in IBD patients, thus resulting in better clinical outcomes and costeffectiveness.

Moving beyond the state of the art

The IBDchip will be a DNA-chip for molecular genotyping of diverse SNPs, since IBD is a highly polymorphic illness and a large number of genes may contribute to its behaviour. The new chip will take the state of the art forward by moving from just diagnosis of disease (Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis) to individualized prognosis of clinical course, development of IBD-related complications and patients' response to a range of different IBD therapies available.

The project is also expected to move the IBDchip beyond the state of the art by developing a new laser technology system significantly smaller in volume resulting in cheaper and faster reading of the IBDchip.