Diagnosis and sub-typing of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) subsets, such as Crohn's disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC), often require the use of repeated, invasive, and expensive endoscopy procedures, which are not without risk.
Researchers in Professor Justin Sonnenburg's laboratory have developed genetic tools for manipulating Bacteroides, a prominent genus of gut bacteria, for imaging, diagnostics, and therapeutic drug delivery.
Necrotizing enterocolitis is a life-threatening illness almost exclusively affecting the gastrointestinal tract of neonates. It's caused by bacterial invasion of the intestinal wall, which leads to inflammation and cellular destruction of the wall of the intestine.
Stem cells are generally influenced by a microenvironmental niche, typically comprised of epithelial and mesenchymal cells and extracellular substrates. Many attempts have been made to produce culture systems that mimic normal intestinal epithelial growth and differentiation.
Patients with celiac disease have a pathological reaction to gluten and have either HLA-DQ2+ (90%) or HLA-DQ8+, but expression of these MHC class II haplotypes is not sufficient and other factors are necessary for the development of celiac sprue.
Stanford researchers have developed a patient classification method (healthy, idiopathic, diabetic, etc.) based on a quantitative assessment score derived from autonomic and gastric electrocardiogram (ECG) and electrogastrogram (EGG) data.