Principal Investigator: Ronen Sumagin, PhD, Associate Professor of Pathology, Northwestern Medicine, Northwestern Feinberg School of Medicine

Made from living cells, biologic medications offer crucial disease mitigation to individuals with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) when other drugs don’t work or have stopped working. Although biologics may improve symptoms and control infection, some 40% of patients on biologics will still experience ongoing inflammation in the colon, increasing their risk for disease relapse or complications requiring surgery or hospitalization. Better predicting a patient’s response to biologic therapy and/or their likelihood of sustaining remission could greatly inform IBD treatment choices, improving patients’ chances for better health.

A type of white blood cell, neutrophils have typically been known to be major drivers of intestinal inflammation. Recent studies suggest, however, that not all neutrophils are the same and some neutrophils may actually help maintain colon health and improve response to biologic therapy. Thanks to previous work, in part supported by DHF, Dr. Sumagin’s team identified a unique subset of beneficial neutrophils found in IBD remission patients. Marked by the expression of surface marker CD74, these unique neutrophils feature distinct anti-inflammatory properties. This year’s DHF funding will help the investigators further expand their understanding of how CD74+ neutrophils work in and why they develop in IBD. Advancing this knowledge offers promise for using these cells as prognostic biomarkers of sustained remission for IBD patients to safely stop biologic therapy and/or as targets to prevent disease recurrence in the future.