A five-year-long effort to better treat certain chronic diseases is entering a clinical trial in Europe, aided by Huntsville-based gene researchers.
The European Union-funded research into immune-mediated inflammatory diseases involves experts from the public and private sectors, including the HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology at Cummings Research Park.
Immune-mediated inflammatory diseases occur when the immune system mistakenly targets the body’s own tissues, leading to inflammation and tissue and organ damage, HudsonAlpha said in a news release. They include rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis, Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis. IMIDs are chronic conditions that require lifelong treatment and can significantly impact quality of life.
The DocTIS clinical trial will focusing on identifying combinations of existing drugs to treat six IMIDs, using patients at several U.K. and Spanish medical centers. The goal, according to the researchers, is to bring disease activity down to remission.
Richard M. Myers, HudsonAlpha’s chief scientific officer, M. A. Loya chair in genomics and faculty investigator, said his team has been contributing genomic assistance to the project’s Spain-based lead investigator. Their work helped identify and develop personalized biomarkers that could predict the clinical response to the combination therapies that will be trialed.
“The DocTIS clinical trial to test a combination of drugs is a novel approach that will serve as a model for combination therapies for a wide range of diseases,” Myers said.
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