Research News

The Stenosis Therapy and Anti-Fibrotic Research (STAR) Consortium has received a 3-year, $2.7 million award from The Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust to expand its support for the development of an artificial intelligence imaging biomarker for Crohn’s disease patients with intestinal fibrosis. The award will involve a collaboration among Cleveland Clinic, Emory University, Mayo Clinic and University of Calgary and be led by co-principal investigators Satish Viswanath, PhD, and Florian Rieder, MD.

Patients with Crohn’s disease, a chronic inflammatory bowel disease, often develop narrowing of the gut due to excessive scar tissue formation. This painful condition, known as stricture, can significantly impair the quality of life in affected patients, often leading to repeated endoscopies, surgeries and hospitalizations. Although advances have been made in fibrotic (scarring) disease of the liver, heart and skin, there are no current anti-fibrotic therapies available for use in Crohn’s disease.

“With this new project, we plan to build a non-invasive tool for patient stratification and early response to anti-fibrotic therapy,” says Dr. Rieder, clinical staff in the Department of Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition, and research staff in the Department of Inflammation & Immunity at Cleveland Clinic. “The STAR Consortium’s goal is to develop these new techniques so we can help Crohn’s disease patients go back to work, have a family and lead healthy lives.”

Using MRI imaging combined with cutting-edge artificial intelligence (AI), the consortium sets out to have a non-invasive view into the intestine of patients with strictures to measure and track scarring. “Our research will result in domain-inspired and clinically actionable computational imaging tools to help patients. We join forces between international and multidisciplinary AI experts, clinical trialists, basic scientists and radiologists,” said Dr. Viswanath, Associate Professor of Pediatrics and Biomedical Engineering at Emory University.

Cleveland Clinic is the coordinating center for the STAR Consortium, which aims to build a pathway enabling clinical testing of anti-fibrotic drugs in patients with stricturing Crohn’s disease. The consortium is co-led by Dr. Rieder; Joel Fletcher, MD, professor of radiology and medical director of Mayo Clinic’s Clinical Innovation Center; and the late Brian Feagan, MD, senior scientific director of Alimentiv, Inc.

The research data and tools developed under the initiative will be disseminated to the greater Crohn’s disease clinical and research communities for the benefit of all patients.

"We are extremely grateful to The Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust for their continuing support to improve the lives of patients with Crohn's disease," Dr. Rieder says. “The Helmsley Charitable Trust has once again provided the STAR Consortium with an opportunity to bring together research expertise to innovate in an area of unmet needs in the study of Crohn’s disease.”

The Helmsley Charitable Trust's Crohn's Disease Program supports impactful ideas and mobilizes a global community committed to improving the lives of Crohn's disease patients while pursuing a cure. The trust is also supporting Cleveland Clinic research through multiple initiatives in the STAR consortium.