IBD Drugs Effect on Autophagy (IDEA Study)
Research type
Research Study
Full title
An investigation of commonly used inflammatory bowel disease drugs on autophagy pathway activity and potential therapeutic benefit in the treatment of paediatric IBD
IRAS ID
182914
Contact name
Paul Henderson
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Edinburgh Napier University
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 9 months, 2 days
Research summary
What is inflammatory bowel disease and why is it important?
The inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD) are life-long conditions affecting the gut. Approximately 1 in 10 patients develop the disease in childhood or adolescence.What do we currently know about IBD drugs
There is no cure for IBD. Medicines are used to settle down inflammation after diagnosis and to keep people well for as long as possible. The current drugs used for the treatment of IBD are often criticised as patients often lose response leading to disease complications. Development of new drugs is a long and expensive process, therefore making better use of drugs that we already have is vital. To do this we first need to better understand how these current drugs work.Understanding how the process of autophagy in IBD
A process that was found to be abnormal in IBD genetic studies was autophagy (literally “eating yourself”). The main function of autophagy is to recycle the damaged or used-up parts of the cell. We have shown in cells in our laboratory that some IBD drugs make the process of autophagy work better. However, we are very keen to examine autophagy in the gut itself.What’s next?
We plan to take a small amount of extra blood, a DNA sample and a few extra biopsies when children are asleep for their previously arranged endoscopy (“camera test”).The Study
We hope to recruit 10 children with IBD and 10 without IBD.Research Questions
1 How does autophagy differ in blood and biopsy samples from patients with and without IBD?
2 Do commonly used IBD drugs increase the activity of autophagy in blood cells and biopsies from patients with and without IBD?
3 What are the effects of the IBD-associated gene changes on autophagy in blood and biopsy samples?REC name
West of Scotland REC 5
REC reference
16/WS/0210
Date of REC Opinion
7 Oct 2016
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion