NIHR IBD (Inflammatory Bowel Disease) BioResource

The Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) BioResource is a national platform designed to expedite research into Crohn’s and colitis and help develop new and better therapies

 

About IBD BioResource

Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD), comprising Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis, affects ~500,000 people in the UK causing relapsing intestinal inflammation. Long-term management often requires major surgery and costly drug treatments to which responses vary considerably for poorly understood reasons. To help in the fight against Crohn’s and colitis, the IBD BioResource was established in 2016.

 

Our aim is to build a national research platform of 50,000 re-callable IBD patients and create a detailed panel of genetic and clinical descriptive data. This panel is accessible by any investigators to assist IBD studies and to accelerate the road to developing new, better-targeted and successful treatments.

Graphic of human gut and bacteria being examined by scientific and medical staff
Graphic representing bowel and colon pain or inflammation

Key goals

  • To recruit 50,000 patients with Crohn’s or colitis from all over the UK, including 1,000 individuals who are new to their diagnosis
  • Genetic analysis to identify markers of disease risk, severity and treatment response.
  • Participants to be directly notified of future IBD research projects they might be willing to help with and be recalled for
  • Scientists and Clinical Investigators to get rapid access to large groups of IBD patients and to de-personalised data for research

 

Gut Reaction

Gut Reaction aims to build on the high-quality health data in the NIHR IBD BioResource by combining it with ‘real-world’ data from participating NHS hospitals and the IBD Registry. This will allow researchers to use the pooled data to support important research into IBD.

More about Gut Reaction

Schematic of processing samples in a biomedical lab

Want to make a difference?

If you join us, you are helping to speed the progress of medical research. Every one of us makes a difference

Where do we operate?

The IBD BioResource is open in over 100 participating sites across the UK, including one in Scotland and two in Wales, and has recruited ~34,000 IBD patients to date.

 

What does taking part involve?

If you have Crohn’s disease or ulcerative colitis and are willing to participate in future IBD research then please check whether your hospital is included in the list of open sites, as recruitment needs to happen through your local hospital clinic.

 

Close-up of keyboard with 'Contact us' written on one of the keys

Contact information 

ibd@bioresource.nihr.ac.uk

 

Our Centres and Programmes

The NIHR BioResource is a network of Centres that recruit participants locally and lead research programmes.

More about our Centres and Programmes