Background

Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), comprising Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis, is characterized by chronic, recurrent mucosal inflammation of the digestive tract. Current treatments come with considerable side effects, are very expensive, and only work in ~50% of patients. Despite recent advances, IBD continues to rise in incidence, burdening our health care system, thereby emphasizing the need to find more effective therapies to treat these diseases.

Technology Overview

Inventors at the University of Toronto have identified a novel gene encoding an “enzyme X” with no ascribed function as promoting IBD in mouse models (unpublished work). Mice deficient in this enzyme, or inhibiting the enzyme with an orally-delivered small molecule inhibitor (i.e. compound Z), prevents IBD using multiple mouse models of