Crohn’s and Colitis Awareness week is observed each year at the beginning of December to bring attention to these incurable diseases. The Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation’s Fibrosis Initiative, a multi-disciplinary collaborative study, was designed to better understand preclinical human mechanisms of fibrosis in IBD using 3D mini guts grown in vitro from blood samples of IBD patients. Scientists at the Cedars-Sinai Board of Governors Regenerative Medicine Institute recently published a proof-of-concept study proving that they can create personalized mini guts from any patient using “induced pluripotent stem cells” that mimic intestinal fibrotic responses. According to the authors, this capability has the potential to generate unlimited quantities of patient-specific cells that could be used to reveal cell- and environmental-specific mechanisms underpinning intestinal fibrosis.
So, the question for all of you is how would you use “personalized” mini guts that match the genetics of the patient to understand the MOA of other diseases? To screen, identify or test new drug candidates?