Changing Lives Through Groundbreaking Science
Using robust scientific and lay review, in the 2023 cycle, the GI Research Foundation awarded $550,000 to six investigators at the University of Chicago for novel research projects.
2023 Competitive Grant Cycle Awards
Using robust scientific and lay review, in the 2023 cycle, the GI Research Foundation awarded $550,000 to six investigators at the University of Chicago for novel research projects.
How Targeting Cell Aging Could Open New Treatments for IBD
Yanchun Li, PhD
Dr. Li has recently discovered that acetate produced from gut bacteria helps prevent colon epithelial aging, which may point to a new therapeutic approach for IBD.
With this grant, Dr. Li will pursue a hypothesis based on a recent discovery that colonic epithelial senescence, or colonic aging, is a common feature of colitis in both mouse colitis models and human IBD. The inflammatory molecules produced from the aging epithelial cells directly contribute to mucosal inflammation.
“Using a combination of scientific and lay review, the GI Research Foundation has awarded $550,000 in grants. We are so proud and privileged to be in partnership with the University of Chicago Medicine’s Digestive Diseases Center. Our competitive grant program supports novel research projects led by its investigators. This partnership provides us with extraordinary opportunities to be a first-in funder of groundbreaking ideas and has resulted in millions in funding from the National Institutes of Health. We are excited about the promise of these funded projects.”
