News within Clinical Medicine
Professor Aideen Long recipient of NCRC Innovation Award
Professor Aideen Long, Cell and Molecular Biology Laboratory, is a recipient of NCRC's Innovation Award (€49,760) to research 'Characterisation of the migratory/inflammatory properties of gut-homing T cells in paediatric patients with inflammatory bowel disease' .
Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is an inflammatory condition affecting the gastrointestinal tract. It is caused when white blood cells called "T cells" that secrete small proteins called 'cytokines' invade the gut, causing redness, swelling and pain (inflammation). A recently developed, effective way of reducing inflammation is by using antibodies to either block the action of the cytokines or the movement of the T cells into the tissue. While this approach works well for some patients, it is not effective for all. We aim to find a way to predict and monitor the patient response to therapies that are designed to block T cell migration into the gut.
