Your gut is home to a massive community of billions of microbes called the gut microbiome, which is composed of both helpful and harmful bacteria. The helpful bacteria play key roles in digestion and gut healing.
However, in individuals living with Crohn’s disease or ulcerative colitis, the balance is shifted towards harmful bacteria that can cause inflammation and tissue damage.
Since her initial diagnosis, Sophie Dufresne, a dedicated mother and Crohn’s and Colitis Canada volunteer, has been on a long journey through several different treatments for Crohn’s.
“When I was diagnosed in 1992, the disease had taken a toll on me. My large intestine was inflamed, I had ulcers that were ready to perforate my colon, and I did not respond to regular treatment.”
Despite these challenges, Sophie never gave up on her search for relief.
To help individuals like Sophie, researchers are working hard to answer two major questions:
- How is the balance between helpful bacteria and harmful bacteria in the gut disrupted in individuals with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD)?
- Can restoring the balance between helpful and harmful bacteria help individuals with treatment-resistant IBD?
In 2015, Crohn’s and Colitis Canada awarded a $50,000 Innovations in IBD Research grant to Dr. Deanna Gibson at the University of British Columbia to tackle these questions.
“I started wondering about the effectiveness of probiotics at the very early part of my career. I had found myself noticing in both rodent models as well as in humans that probiotics really didn't colonize that well.”
“I started to wonder if it was possible that probiotics could be improved.”
From her initial grant, Dr. Gibson and her team developed an exciting new probiotic called BioPersist.
Inside your gut, helpful and harmful bacteria are constantly competing for energy. BioPersist is a special, genetically modified probiotic that helps the good bacteria survive during inflammation. These changes make BioPersist better at outcompeting harmful bacteria and supporting gut health. In early-stage experimental animal models, BioPersist outperformed the current main treatment for IBD.
“What our bioengineered microbe does is it blooms during the inflammatory response, and then it has the ability to enact a bunch of different pathways, right? Not just a single targeted pathway.”
After promising initial results, Crohn’s and Colitis Canada granted Dr. Gibson an additional $375,000 in 2023 to bring BioPersist to life. With this tech and new funding in hand, Dr. Gibson co-founded Melius MicroBiomics, the very first spin-off company resulting from Crohn’s and Colitis Canada funding.
Based in Vancouver and Kelowna, BC, their team of hardworking scientists and leading industry experts is pushing BioPersist through the next stages of commercialization. Their main goal is to bring BioPersist from the lab bench to the bedside.
Melius MicroBiomics’ founding and the development of BioPersist by Dr. Gibson’s team are shining examples of how donor generosity can lead to transformative therapies.
“That innovative grant, that $50,000, literally built this, right? It wouldn’t have been built, period, because I would have never had funding. If somebody hadn't supported that grant like the reviewers did, I probably just wouldn’t have even tried.”
You can help improve the quality of life of everyone affected by Crohn’s or colitis by supporting Crohn’s and Colitis Canada.
For Sophie, showing her support means sharing her experience with newly diagnosed individuals.
“Now that I’ve stabilized, I want to share my treatment journey with others, with all the ups and downs. I want to let them know that it’s important to stay hopeful, and that help is around the corner.”