Monday, January 31, 2005

Biochip for inflammatory bowel disease

Filed under: Diagnostics , GI

Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis are two most common forms of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) -- an inflammation of the digestive tract. BasqueResearch.com informs that a Spanish company Progenika has developed a biochip to diagnose genetic mutations related to inflammatory bowel disease:

At the III International Symposium on Advanced Therapy for Chronic Inflammatory Bowel Disease, held in Madrid, the biotechnological company, Progenika, presented a DNA-chip the purpose of which is the optimisation of the diagnosis, prognosis and treatment of patients with inflammatory bowel disease (Crohn's disease and Ulcerous Colitis).

The project developing the biochip, known as the IBDChip, was carried out with the collaboration of Dr. Miquel Sans of the Gastroenterology Service at the Barcelona Hospital Clinico and Dr. Carlos Cara of UCB Pharma. The biochip is currently analysing 46 mutations related to inflammatory bowel disease (EII) and will shortly begin clinical trials.

The polymorphisms analysed are diverse and enable the establishment of the risk of suffering from the disease, its prognosis and the response of the patient to the pharmacological treatment.

From a clinical practice viewpoint the implantation of the IBDchip has a twin usefulness: it enables the selection of the most suitable therapy for each patient and it also determines, in those family members of EII sufferers who wish to be tested, the degree of predisposition for developing the infirmity.

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