Imagine your gut getting scarred and stiff like a clogged pipe, which often requires surgery to fix. This work finds the specific 'switches' in the body that cause this scarring so they can be turned off with medicine. It also uses AI and advanced scans to see this scarring without needing invasive surgery.
Current IBD treatments only target inflammation, leaving intestinal fibrosis untreated. This leads to permanent gut scarring and a high rate of surgical bowel resections.
Validated molecular biomarkers for fibrosis and an AI-integrated MRE imaging pathway for non-invasive diagnosis.
If you are a drug developer dealing with the lack of anti-fibrotic treatments for Crohn's disease — this project developed validated targets like C3, Tyk2-STAT3, and NLRP3 that can be used to create new therapies to prevent bowel resections.
If you are a diagnostic provider dealing with the difficulty of non-invasively detecting gut fibrosis — this project developed AI-integrated magnetic resonance enterography (MRE) that allows for reproducible assessment of intestinal scarring.
If you are a biotech company dealing with poor patient stratification in clinical trials — this project developed molecular signatures and biomarkers using spatial transcriptomics to identify patients at high risk for fibrosis.
Based on available project data, specific pricing or cost-per-unit for the diagnostics and therapies is not provided.
The project is currently in the preclinical validation and first-in-human trial design phase, meaning it is not yet at industrial scale.
Based on available project data, specific patent numbers or licensing terms are not listed, though the project involves 5 industry partners.
The project is engaging with regulatory bodies to obtain approval for implementing non-invasive imaging modalities as diagnostic tools.
The project runs from 2023-04-01 to 2028-03-31, with the goal of designing first-in-human proof of concept trials.
The consortium is highly commercially oriented, featuring a 50% industry ratio with 5 industry partners, including 4 SMEs. This balance between 2 universities and 2 research institutes suggests a strong push toward translating the 5.6 million Euro investment into marketable medical products and diagnostic tools.
Contact the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven research office regarding FIBROTARGET
Contact SciTransfer for a detailed breakdown of the validated NLRP3 and Tyk2 targets.
