Try-IBD

Multi-dimensional resolution of tryptophan-driven immune-metabolism as a novel pathophysiological principle in inflammatory bowel disease

Chronic inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is a growing medical problem of industrialized societies.IBD often affect younger people in education or early working life, resulting in significant distress and loss of quality of life. The proposed joint project “Try-IBD” aims to investigate the role of the amino acid immunometabolism of tryptophan on the pathogenesis of inflammatory bowel disease and pursues to test the potention of trypotphan immunometabolism as a novel diagnostic element in BD.
For this purpose, multi-omics data from patient cohorts with CED are combined with novel bioinformatic approaches to derive sound hypotheses on the role on how different body compartments translate disturbed tryptophan metabolism into different immunological consequences. Based on this, tryptophan metabolism is modeled in mouse models and intestinal organoid models, in order to identify novel therapeutic and diagnostic starting points for patients with IBD. Lastly, we pursue the development of novel metabolic tracers (hyperpolarized tryptophan) and aim to implement metabolic imaging as a novel diagnostic element in in patients with IBD.