The GI Research Foundation supports researchers as they investigate the treatment, prevention, and cure of digestive diseases, leading to groundbreaking discoveries that transform lives. Over the course of a decades-long partnership with UChicago Medicine, the Foundation’s funding has supported projects across a wide range of disciplines, providing both long-term stability and advancing leading-edge research.
More than six decades of partnership
The GI Research Foundation was founded over 65 years ago by grateful patients of Joseph B. Kirsner, MD, PhD, who joined the University of Chicago in 1935 and became a renowned gastroenterologist and pioneer in inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) research. He made pivotal discoveries, including identifying the influence of genetics and the increased risk of colon cancer in IBD, and he shaped the ways physicians still care for patients.
Today, David T. Rubin, MD’94 (pictured), a mentee of Kirsner’s, leads UChicago
Medicine’s Section of Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition and directs the
IBD Center. “The GI Research Foundation has been ahead of its time for 65 years,
founded on the conviction that investing in the right people will change medicine and
improve the lives of those who are suffering,” said Rubin.
Team science: the power of collaboration across disciplines
A recent study funded by the Foundation has the potential to radically change how physicians understand IBD’s effect on a patient’s mental health. The study relies on a collaboration with the Duchossois Family Institute Microbiome Metabolomics (DFIMM) lab, led by Ashley Sidebottom, PhD, where researchers use leading-edge technology to study and categorize metabolites, or chemicals produced by the body’s biological processes.
Patients with IBD have an increased risk of anxiety and depression, which may stem from abnormal activity in the gut. A disrupted gut microbiome can lead to systemic inflammation that affects the entire body, including the permeable blood-brain barrier that regulates the entry of circulating substances such as hormones, neurotransmitters, and metabolites between the blood and the central nervous system (CNS). Rubin and Sidebottom hypothesized that inflammation due to changes in the gut microbiome may contribute to substantial alterations in circulating neurotransmitters and mood-altering metabolites, and thereby directly affect the CNS and impact mood.
To test this hypothesis, Rubin and Sidebottom conducted a yearlong study where patients with IBD completed mental health questionnaires to determine the presence and severity of their anxiety and depression and provided blood samples to measure circulating metabolites produced by their gut microbiome. Preliminary analysis from this study showed that specific metabolites are associated with depression severity.
The next steps of the study will help researchers better understand the role of these metabolites in IBD, gut inflammation, and mental health. This novel approach could completely shift the current perception and treatment of the mental health challenges associated with IBD, as well as the stigma of depression and anxiety associated with these bowel conditions.
Early-career support
The Foundation also provides critical support for early-career scientists. Matthew Odenwald, PhD’15, MD’17, a former gastroenterology fellow in the Duchossois Family Institute and now assistant professor of medicine, received funding from the Foundation at a critical juncture in his career, allowing him to study the role of metabolites in cirrhosis, or liver disease.
“I did all my training at UChicago, including my research fellowship, and then joined the faculty. At that transition point between fellow and faculty, there is often a lack of funding. The Foundation’s support helped me generate critical preliminary data to be able to apply for grants,” said Odenwald (pictured).
Odenwald worked with the DFIMM to find a way to measure newly discovered metabolites and to reveal how they might correlate with both different stages of cirrhosis and with different outcomes in patients. In addition to suggesting new ways of evaluating treatment options for patients with cirrhosis, Odenwald’s research provided data that launched new collaborations. “One of my colleagues in infectious disease, Chris Lehmann, MD, and another GI colleague, Alice Cheng, PhD’10, MD’12, have taken some of the observations and started asking questions about these metabolites and how they might either inhibit pathogens or support health-promoting bacteria,” said Odenwald.
For Odenwald, support from the Foundation has allowed him and his colleagues to break new ground in the field. “People have known that the microbes make metabolites for a very long time, but it’s not until the past five to ten years that we’ve really started to zoom in on some of these new metabolites and how they interact with the microbes around them, and it is a major shift in the field,” he said.
The value of long-term collaboration
“My involvement with the GI Research Foundation began more than 30 years ago, and over that time, I have had the privilege of seeing the extraordinary impact the Foundation has made in helping the University of Chicago Medicine become a world leader in digestive disease research. We have done this by sharpening our mission and our approach,” said Howard A. Grill (pictured), a longtime volunteer and board member of the Foundation, and the most recent recipient of the Foundation’s Joseph B. Kirsner Award.
“Today, we provide critical funding for bold, innovative ideas—promising research that might otherwise struggle to get off the ground. That early investment has led to important discoveries, launched the careers of talented investigators, and helped researchers secure millions of dollars in additional funding to take their work even further. I am incredibly proud to have been part of it all,” added Grill.
The Foundation’s approach to funding allows UChicago Medicine researchers to tackle some of the most challenging questions in the field. “What the GI Research Foundation gives investigators at UChicago Medicine is something rare in academic medicine: the freedom to take on questions that are bold, unconventional, or simply too early-stage for traditional funders to take seriously. That kind of support is what allows us to do the science that ultimately reshapes how we understand and treat disease,” said Rubin.
