About This Project

Ask the Scientists

What is the context of this research?

The 10’s of millions of people
with inflammatory bowel disease (AKA ‘colitis’: e.g. ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease) have a high colon cancer risk. Current treatment strategies are often toxic, with bad side-effects, so often people don’t like to use them, and are looking for alternative ways to treat this terrible disease.

Over the past decade, my lab has had pretty amazing results using complementary and alternative medicines, as well as novel drugs to treat colitis and prevent colon cancer in mice. For example, giving mice American Ginseng reverses the damaged colon caused by colitis to a normal looking colon. We can also prevent colon cancer in these mice taking American Ginseng. We have carried out similar experiments with Resveratrol, Ginkgo Biloba, and small molecules with similarly amazing results. Importantly, we have published all of our results in peer-reviewed impact journals including Carcinogenesis, Cancer Prevention Research, Cancer Research, Journal of Nutrition, American Journal of Physiology, Plos One, etc.

At this point, we need a relatively small amount of money to carry out experiments to compare all of our treatments in one, well controlled animal study. Once experiments are complete, and results examined in full, we will be at the point of picking the best, non-toxic treatment strategy (e.g. if American Ginseng works best, we will use this), and move to double-blind, placebo controlled clinical trials. In the end, we anticipate that we will find the best, safest mode yet to date of suppressing this terrible disease (colitis), preventing colon cancer, and improving the quality, and saving the lives of over 25 million people world-wide.

What is the significance of this project?

Currently, approved treatment strategies for colitis (and prevention of colon cancer) have modest results, and there are serious, toxic side-effects, such as sepsis, cancer, and death. There is a clear need for less toxic, more powerful ways of treating this disease.

The use of complementary and alternative medicines (‘CAMs’) is one such natural way to do this. We have had amazing results with several CAMs (e.g. American Ginseng, Ginkgo Bilioba, Resveratrol) in mice, but have yet to carry out experiments in one well-controlled study to compare all of our products. We will be able to do this through funding here. Results will lead to clinical trials as a final step to improving the quality of life, and saving the lives of millions upon millions of people world-wide.

What are the goals of the project?

1. Feed mice with colitis American Ginseng, Ginkgo Biloba, Resveratrol, Cl-amidine, and Quinacrine; and compare these to current FDA-approved drugs (5-ASA and Olsalazine).
2. Quantify the level of colitis in each of the groups of mice.
3. Quantify the level of colon cancer in each of the groups of mice.
4. Publish results in a peer-reviewed, high quality journal.
5. Disseminate results to all that contribute to this project.