The Griffin Institute

The research arm of The Griffin Institute is working on two areas of potential benefit to people living with Inflammatory Bowel Diseases (IBD) by creating a replacement bowel tissue for transplantation and by developing an in vitro platform for evaluating candidate drugs for the treatment of those patients who are not suitable for surgery. Our tissue engineering approach could also be used to treat other bowel diseases including reconstructive surgery after cancer removal. Approximately 50% of patients with Crohn’s disease and 20% with Ulcerative Colitis (UC) will require life-changing surgery that involves removal of part of the bowel resulting in complications with stool frequency, malnutrition and infections. As a proof of concept, we will grow stem cells on a biological inert scaffold in the laboratory to optimise the conditions for seeding the patient’s own stem cells for eventual transplantation. Use of the patients own stem cells avoids immune rejection. This proof of concept will lay the foundation for translational studies and eventual clinical trials for the management of UC and other bowel conditions in humans. We also hope that this work will lead to the development of a 3D model where the model tissue populated with healthy cells will be used to better understand the natural progression of UC for the purposes of testing interventions for early stage disease.