A team of European researchers is getting closer to finding the cause of inflammatory bowel disease in order to open up new treatment possibilities, according to a CORDIS report.
IBD — primarily Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis — has no known cause, though many believe it occurs when microbes within the intestine trigger an immune response in predisposed individuals.
The EU-funded project, titled "IBD: Proteases Offer New Targets for Drug Discover," is examining matrix metalloproteases enzymes, which break down other proteins. The researchers' new insight could help focus treatment studies on various inhibitors or agonists of digestive bacterial proteases.
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