Summary

IBD is a disease entity of unknown origin, characterized by a chronic inflammation in the gastrointestinal tract. The disease course varies from an indolent course to an aggressive, treatment refractory disease, with need of repeated hospital admissions, surgery and increased risk of comorbidity including cancer. Thus, IBD have severe consequences for many affected individuals. Current IBD treatment is expensive and lacks in therapeutic precision. NORDTREAT aims to selectively identify patients with a poor prognosis based on a novel objective protein signature and adapt the treatment in these patients to minimize disease-induced damage on the gastrointestinal tract and to improve quality of life. NORDTREAT exploitation plan includes the development of this protein signature into a diagnostic application and to explore potential additional novel biomarkers in collaboration with the Nordic biomedical industrial sector and especially biomarker manufacturers. In parallel with the treatment, the researchers will, among other things, analyze the importance of the bacteria in the gut and the genetic material in the context. In this way, it is hoped to be able to further develop the method that will now be used to identify which persons with IBD are at risk of developing a serious disease course.