Cedars-Sinai Receives $10 Million for Inflammatory Bowel Disease Study

LOS ANGELES, CA -- Cedars-Sinai received a $10 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to fund the conclusion of a decades-long study of genetic causes of inflammatory bowel disease, the medical center announced Monday.

"This is the longest IBD study of its kind funded by the NIH and the first to explore the genetic makeup of the disease," said Dr. Stephan R. Targan, director of the F. Widjaja Foundation Inflammatory Bowel and Immunobiology Research Institute at Cedars.

"Since 1992, we've taken an integrative approach -- bringing several areas of science together -- to demonstrate that this challenging disease is in fact comprised of several forms of the disease, each with a different biology," he said.

Cedars officials said IBD includes a variety of chronic illnesses, with Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis as the most commonly known. But the ailment can develop in a variety of ways, highlighting the importance of a precise diagnosis to ensure the proper treatments are prescribed.

"Work from this project is making very significant contributions to helping patients around the world," said Dr. Dermot McGovern, director of Cedars-Sinai Precision Health. "These approaches to diagnosis and treatment should be available to all sections of society, and we have been working hard to achieve those goals."

-- City News Service, photo credit: Jorobeq at English Wikipedia