Researchers at the University of California, Davis have identified an orally administered molecule from microbial origin, capable of repairing damaged gut epithelial barriers and restoring energy metabolism.

Inflatable pouches are attractive as actuators and structural links in soft robots due to their low deflated profile and high deformation ratio. Particularly compelling for minimally invasive surgery, deflated robots/actuators may be deployed in small form factors and maneuver delicately in tight spaces once inflated. However, current fabrication methods do not readily scale for production of actuators with less than 1 mm feature sizes; they often require precision handling of separator films; and/or there are limited multilayer integration capabilities. Fully miniaturized, high degree-of-freedom surgical pouch robots and actuators have not yet been realized.To overcome these challenges, UC Berkeley researchers have developed a rapid, monolithic, and scalable manufacturing method for fabricating thin-film-based pneumatic pouch soft robots. Small features (less than 0.3 mm) can be patterned at high speeds and using commercially available manufacturing tools while maintaining film planarity. Resulting robots can have complex, multilayer structures including single- and bi-directional joint actuators, structural links, integrated in-plane air channels, through-holes for interlayer connectivity, and air inlets to a supply manifold—from a single integrated processing step. Researchers have demonstrated a miniature four finger hand which can dexterously manipulate a cube (8 degrees of freedom), as well as an 10 degree-of-freedom planar arm with a gripper which can maneuver around obstacles. Entire pouch robot structures can have un-inflated thickness of less than 300 um and be inherently soft, allowing the robots to be used in tight spaces with fragile tissues for surgical applications.

Researchers at the University of California, Davis have developed a novel 3D printing approach to culture and construct epithelial tubular mini-tissues.

Currently, techniques such as LC-MS/MS and enzymology are used to assess gut permeability. This invention (along with the related invention linked here) allow rapid and inexpensive assessment of gut permeability using equipment readily available in small gastroenterology labs. 

Researchers at UCI have developed a family of recombinant protein therapeutics against Clostridium difficile designed to provide broad-spectrum protection and neutralization against all isoforms of its main toxin, TcdB. These antitoxin molecules feature fragments of TcdB’s human receptors (CSPG4 and FZD) which compete for TcdB binding, significantly improving upon existing antibody therapeutics for Clostridium difficile infections.

Researchers at the University of California, Davis have developed an isolated strain of Bifidobacterium to be used in infant probiotics that can be produced at a commercially viable scale.

Researchers at the University of California, Davis have isolated strains of Bifidobacterium that can metabolize oligosaccharides containing sialic acid to aid in probiotic supplements for infants.

Researchers at the University of California, Davis have designed a motor drive unit that enables combined fluorescence lifetime imaging and optical coherence tomography of luminal structures.

Alcohol is one of the most frequent causes of liver disease including alcohol-associated steatosis, steatohepatitis, fibrosis and cirrhosis, and alcoholic hepatitis. Patients with alcohol‐induced liver disease lose certain glycans (sugar molecules) on the surface of their intestinal epithelial cells (glycocalyx). Intestinal bacteria usually thrive on these glycans by using them as energy substrates. In the absence of these specific glycans, some bacteria lose their competitive advantage and other bacteria grow and thrive instead, changing the gut microbiome, which contributes to symptoms of alcohol‐induced liver disease.

Ulcerative colitis (UC), an inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), is characterized by chronic inflammation of the colon, with severity of mucosal inflammation being associated with a higher risk of work disability, hospitalization, colorectal cancer, and colectomy. Non-specific immunosuppressive agents targeting the host, such as steroids, thiopurines, and/or biologics, are used to offset the natural history of disease in patients with moderate-severe inflammation. These therapies are, however, associated with significant risks and often ineffective in adequately managing disease. Genomic technologies have identified associations between microbial dysbiosis, or temporal shifts in composition, and UC severity. While recent efforts extended profiling of microbiota in UC beyond genomics, it remains poorly understood if these shifts are causal or associative in nature, and which mechanisms govern pathogenic roles of the microbiome in UC.

Inflammatory bowel disease is a chronic disease, which affects the lower bowel parts or the entire GI tract, causing symptoms like abdominal pain, diarrhea, fever and weight loss. An estimated two million people in North America suffer from IBD seemingly caused by an overactive mucosal immune system. Crohn’s Disease and ulcerative colitis (UC) are the major groups of inflammatory conditions that make up IBD and are incurable, serious and chronic organic diseases of the intestinal tract.   Recently, anti-integrin monoclonal antibodies have been approved by the FDA as therapeutic agents for treatment of IBD and there are a number of phase three clinical trials ongoing using monoclonal antibody therapy. The immune system responds to the inflammation that is part of the immunopathology of IBD and acts by recruiting inflammatory cells to the intestinal lesions.  Intergrins, specifically alpha 4-β7, plays a key role in mediating leukocyte trafficking from the circulation to the vascular endothelial barrier in gut-associate lymphoid tissue with the ligand MAdCAM-1. The use of anti-integrin therapy targeting alpha 4-β7 reduces the number of immune cells to the gut endothelium. However, the precise identity of the cell subsets depleted from the intestinal lamina by these anti-integrin drugs have not been identified. Thus, there is an unmet need to further develop tools that allow for the identification of the critical effector cell subsets targeted by these drugs in the intestine.

Modeling diseases as networks has helped simplify an otherwise complex web of multi‐cellular processes; however, an exclusive reliance on symmetric relationships in these networks overlooks the existence of disease continuum states and loses information relevant to pathogenesis and for the development of therapeutics. Network‐based analyses severely influenced by symmetric analyses have helped formalize Network Medicine as a field and deliver many successes, but drugs that can predictably re‐set the network in complex multi‐component diseases are yet to emerge.

Schistosomiasis is a disease caused by infection with parasitic flatworms called schistosomes. The three major medically important species are Schistosoma mansoni (causing intestinal schistosomiasis in Africa and South America), S. japonicum (intestinal schistosomiasis in East Asia), and S. haematobium (causing genitourinary schistosomiasis in Africa and the Middle East). Signs and symptoms may include abdominal pain, diarrhea, bloody stool, or blood in the urine.  The treatment of schistosomiasis serves three purposes: reversing acute or early chronic disease, preventing complications associated with chronic infection, and preventing neuroschistosomiasis. The goal of treatment is to remove the worms that produce the eggs which, in turn, are responsible for disease morbidity and mortality. There is no effective vaccine against schistosomiasis.

UCLA researchers at the David Geffen School of Medicine have discovered a small antimicrobial peptide elafin to be used as a biomarker for evaluating inflammatory bowel disease activity and the development of intestinal fibrosis.

UCLA researchers in the Department of Medicine and Surgery have developed a novel therapeutic for the prevention of late inflammatory complications in severe acute pancreatitis patients.

A mosaic of cross-phyla chemical interactions occurs between all metazoans and their microbiomes. In humans, the gut harbors the heaviest microbial load, but many organs, particularly those with a mucosal surface, associate with highly adapted and evolved microbial consortia. The microbial residents within these organ systems are increasingly well characterized, yielding a good understanding of human microbiome composition. However, we have yet to elucidate the full chemical impact the microbiome exerts on an animal and the breadth of the chemical diversity it contributes. A number of molecular families are known to be shaped by the microbiome including short-chain fatty acids, indoles, aromatic amino acid metabolites, complex polysaccharides, and host sphingolipids and bile acids. These metabolites profoundly affect host physiology and are being explored for their roles in both health and disease. The synthesis of bile acids takes place in the liver and recent research has shown that bile acids can act as signaling molecules and activate a number of molecules. A primary focus has been on the Farnesoid X receptor (FXR) which plays an important role in bile acid synthesis and in regulation of glucose, lipid and energy metabolism.

Vedolizumab (VDZ) is an effective therapy for the management of patients with moderately to severely active ulcerative colitis (UC) or Crohn’s disease (CD) who have failed conventional therapy with aminosalicylates, corticosteroids, and thiopurines, as well as biologic therapy with tumor necrosis factor (TNF) antagonists. Several studies have identified potential predictors of treatment outcomes; however, the optimal approach to integrating predictors into routine practice is uncertain.No prior decision support tools exist to predict VDZ drug exposure in UC and CD and link this back to differences in effectiveness or response to VDZ dose escalation. By having a tool that can predict at baseline prior to start of therapy whether VDZ will be effective and what a patients drug exposure profile will be with VDZ, the provider can 1) determine if VDZ is an appropriate therapy to begin, 2) proactively monitor those patients deemed high risk for treatment failure with VDZ, and 3) proactively measure drug concentrations for VDZ to then increase the dose or the interval at which VDZ is administered to improve outcomes.

UCLA researchers from the Vatche and Tamar Manoukian Division of Digestive Diseases have discovered an innovative approach to diagnose irritable bowel syndrome. This method uses a set of epigenetic profiles as biomarkers and is highly sensitive compared to conventional diagnostic methodologies.

UCLA researchers in the Department of Bioengineering and Surgery have developed an electrode for stimulation and recording of intestinal peristalsis that uses a novel impedance-based sensing method.

UCSF researchers have developed a novel small molecule drug that specifically targets and inhibits SLC26A3 (DRA), an anion exchanger whose inhibition is expected to have therapeutic benefit in constipation and oxalate kidney stone disease.

A novel class of 2-acylamino-cycloalkylthiophene-3-carboxylic acid arylamides (AACTs) as potent TMEM16A inhibitors

These highly specific biomarkers distinguish potentially malignant mucinous cysts from benign nonmucinous cysts in the pancreas to help diagnose precursor lesions of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma. The biomarkers can be detected through enzymatic assays with exceptional accuracy and sensitivity.

The use of traditional probiotic microorganisms to provide therapeutic function for the gut microbiome has a number of limitations. Probiotic bacteria do not colonize the gut because they can’t compete with the resident flora that have evolved for that environment. Current probiotics are a single strain which when used in multiple hosts have not had great success in broad populations and are therefore unpredictable. To alleviate the above problem, a new approach is necessary to colonize the human gastrointestinal tract with greater reliability and for therapeutic value to the patient. 

Researchers at the University of California, Davis have developed a method to harvest and enrich symbiotic bacteriophage to promote bacterial immunity.

Researchers from the Department of General Surgery at UCLA have developed an easy-to-use method to determine intestinal permeability that utilizes an FDA-approved non-absorbable dye.