by Hannah Stevenson
Over the past years the CH.I.L.D. Foundation has worked hard to raise funds for important research. Since the very beginning our mission has remained clear – to find a cure for pediatric Crohn’s Disease, Ulcerative Colitis and Liver Disorders. Our Network works tirelessly, and with great successes to get us closer to this goal. In just the past year, these researchers have achieved truly remarkable feats and remain on the forefront of the field. The following are some of the exciting achievements by our researchers in the past year, we are grateful for their work to help those forgotten children and their families.
Bruce Vallance and Eytan Wine received the CIHR microbiome grant totaling $2 Million over four years. Their proposal “Role of Microbes in the pathogenesis of Pediatric IBD: From discovery, through causation, to novel treatments” ranked #1 out of 7 teams. This extraordinary team will study the complicated role of microbes and gut microbiomes in pediatric Inflammatory Bowel Disease. This focus proves promising and the CH.I.L.D. Foundation is grateful and excited to be involved in such ground-breaking research.
Dr. Amanda Ricciuto was awarded the 2020 PRO-KIIDS pilot award. Only one grant was awarded by PRO-KIIDS, which Dr. Ricciuto won with her project “Serum Cytokine Profiles to Predict Anti-TNF Responsiveness in Pediatric Inflammatory Bowel Disease”. Dr. Ricciuto has focused her PhD research on pediatric IBD/ liver disease, specializing in primary sclerosing cholangitis. Dr. Ricciuto contributes greatly to her field of pediatric gastroenterology, and this award showcases her work as an example of innovation and dedication in the field.
Dr. Anne Griffiths received the 2019 Shwachman award, the highest honour awarded by NASPGHAN (North American Society for Pediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology, and Nutrition). This award is given to an individual who has made “major, lifelong scientific or education contributions to the field of pediatric gastroenterology, hepatology, or nutrition in North America”. As the co-lead for Sickkids IBD Centre and the Principal Investigator for the Canadian Children Inflammatory Bowel Disease Network of the CH.I.L.D. Foundation, Dr. Griffiths is not only carving out extensive space for research in the field of pediatric Gastroenterology, but remains in close connection with the CH.I.L.D. Foundation.
Here are just a few of the publications from these amazing scientists. These studies fill in knowledge gaps in our current approach to treating these diseases and carve pathways for a cure:
Amanda Ricciuto, Jasbir Dhaliwal, Thomas D Walters, Anne M Griffiths, Peter C Church, Clinical Outcomes With Therapeutic Drug Monitoring in Inflammatory Bowel Disease: A Systematic Review With Meta-Analysis, Journal of Crohn’s and Colitis, Volume 12, Issue 11, November 2018, Pages 1302–1315, https://doi.org/10.1093/ecco-jcc/jjy109
Griffiths, Anne,. et al. “Genome-wide meta-analysis increases to 71 the number of confirmed Crohn’s disease susceptibility loci”. Nat Genet 42, 1118–1125 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/ng.717
Griffiths, Anne,. et al. “The Treatment-Naïve Microbiome in New-Onset Crohn’s Disease” Cell Host & Microbe Resource, vol. 15, pp. 382-392., doi: doi.org/10.1016/j.chom.2014.02.005
Vallance, Bruce, et al. “Cutting Edge: Intestinal Mucus Limits the Clonal Deletion of Developing T Cells Specific for an Oral Antigen.” The Journal of Immunology, vol. 205, no. 2, 2020, pp. 329–334., doi:10.4049/jimmunol.1900687.
Vallance, Bruce, et al. “Intestinal Epithelium-Specific MyD88 Signaling Impacts Host Susceptibility to Infectious Colitis by Promoting Protective Goblet Cell and Antimicrobial Responses.” Infection and Immunity, vol. 82, no. 9, 2014, pp. 3753–3763., doi:10.1128/iai.02045-14.
Vallance, Bruce, et al. “Control of Intestinal Homeostasis, Colitis, and Colitis-Associated Colorectal Cancer by the Inflammatory Caspases.” Immunity, vol. 32, no. 3, 2010, pp. 367–378., doi:10.1016/j.immuni.2010.02.012.
If you’d like to know more about our incredible researchers, find more info here:
- Dr. Amanda Ricciuto: http://www.sickkids.ca/AboutSickKids/Directory/People/R/Amanda%20Ricciuto.html
- Dr. Bruce Vallance: https://www.bcchr.ca/bvallance
- Dr. Anne Griffiths: http://www.sickkids.ca/AboutSickKids/Directory/People/G/Anne-Griffiths.html