As many as 3 million Americans suffer from inflammatory bowel diseases like ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease. Luiz Roesch and Brent Sumerlin think synthetic mucus might give them relief.
Doctors typically treat the inflammation in the bowels that can lead to diarrhea, stomach pain, fatigue, nausea and weight loss. But Roesch, a microbiologist, and Sumerlin, a chemist, think their artificial mucus could prevent the problem in the first place. By restoring the gut’s mucus barrier – a protective layer that keeps microbes and toxins away from intestinal cells – the material could help prevent the immune reactions that drive inflammation.
“We want to target the source of the inflammation, which are the bacterial toxins. When we block the toxins, inflammation is reduced,” says Roesch, an associate professor of microbiology and cell science at the UF Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences.