Atomic IBD looking ahead with optimism
Post-omicron; Profile recruitment complete; IBD Edinburgh 2022 and Atomic essays
Welcome to another edition of Atomic IBD.
Today at a glance:
Looking ahead - finally - to a year not completely dominated by COVID. That’s my feeling anyway. I am optimistic that once we are past this current Omicron wave that we - in the rich developed world at least - will see life return much closer to normal
The Profile study (world’s first biomarker-stratified study in IBD) has completed recruitment - an incredible achievement
ECCO is currently still going ahead as a face-to-face meeting
Next Thursday is IBD Edinburgh 2022: I’m going to preview the final agenda and share the thoughts of several of our faculty ahead of the event. As of Friday 7th we pre-registrations were sitting at incredible 559!
Atomic essays are back; plus Atomic IBD video podcast launching soon!
Looking ahead to 2022 with optimism
Many of you I suspect have, like me, started 2022 with a certain sense of trepidation and deja vu.
However I think there are many reasons to feel optimistic. I’m relatively confident that life will feel much more normal come the spring and I for one am planning around that.
I look forward to a year of re-connecting with colleagues and friends in real-life, of networking and exchanging genuinely new ideas that have formed during the pandemic. Whilst much research was paused and refocused on COVID, a huge amount of IBD research has continued.
Data from clinical trials of new molecules for IBD are emerging at a breath-taking rate. In 2022 we see some of those new molecules come to market and phase 3 data from others released. This year we can start to properly make sense of how best to use these new therapeutic tools.
COVID and Omicron and vaccination in the clinic.
We entered the festive period with a great deal of uncertainty.
Omicron was surging and was so new that knowledge on severity was very preliminary. Thankfully it has now been confirmed across multiple populations that the severity of Omicron is much lower than with Delta. However, the dramatic increase in infectivity has sent case numbers soaring across the world.
The impact is rather different. Testing strategies have had to be adopted and staff absences have been a huge concern - no less than across the NHS. Whilst hospitalisations with Omicron are going up, this is not 12 months ago when intensive care units had to expand and expand again due to severe COVID illness.
The major concern across the board is staffing levels. For many the next two months is going to be very testing, covering for absences at the busiest time of year for healthcare.
The vast majority of our IBD patients are well protected with vaccination - most of those eligible have taken up the 3rd primary dose of vaccine, many of whom are now eligible for their 4th (booster) dose (3m after dose 3).
I still see occasional patients who have not taken up the offer of vaccination at all. I try to explore the reasons for vaccine refusal with empathy - sometimes I feel my rational explanations are heard, but too often now the denial is entrenched and hearing this saddens me still.
Meetings have moved to virtual, but ECCO still plans to be face to face
In addition to IBD Edinburgh 2022, the Crohn's Colitis Congress 2022 has this week pivoted to a fully virtual experience (20th - 22nd January).
At the time of writing the ECCO'22 Congress is still going ahead as a fully in person meeting in Vienna (16-19 February).
There are a number of requirements for those attending (from their website):
A personal identification (eg passport)
A valid vaccination proof (at least 2 vaccinations)
A valid PCR test (it looks like these are required every 48 hours in Austria!)
I am not involved with the organisation of ECCO these days. I imagine many people will be wondering what to do about travel plans etc. I will update here as soon as I hear any more.
IBD Edinburgh 2022: final agenda and speaker profiles
The final agenda is live and registrations have been incredible - 559 by end of play on Friday and still rising.
The event is open to:
all clinicians (especially all members of the IBD multi-disciplinary team
academics, and
people working in industry
Please register here: IBD Edinburgh 2022: Holistic Remission - from Bench to Bedside
Whilst this event is not for patients I am planning a follow-up event that will be specifically for patients and other non-professionals.
Thanks to our amazing faculty for helping promote the event.
There are many talks I am personally looking forward to, perhaps none more than Professor Lauri Keefer - health psychologist at Mount Sinai (New York) and co-founder of Trellus Health.
Be sure to subscribe to Atomic IBD, as I will be sharing content from the event here over the coming weeks. Note that the cases session in the afternoon (sure to be a highlight) will only be available live and not on demand.
The Profile study has completed recruitment on target
Huge congratulations to the entire team - Miles Parkes, Nuru Noor and all the investigators.
Profile is the world’s first biomarker-stratified RCT in IBD. It is testing the transcriptomic signature originally developed by James Lee in Ken Smith’s lab in Cambridge. James reported in The Journal of Clinical Investigation back in 2011 that a CD8 T cell transcriptomic signature could distinguish patients with an aggressive versus a quiescent disease course in both Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis. Next they derived the signature in whole-blood for ease of testing. This gene panel has been available now as a commercial offering for a few years already now (by Predictimmune with whom I have no conflict of interest).
We should know in a little over a year whether treatment stratification based on this biomarker improves outcomes in Crohn’s disease.
Side note: there is a very nice piece on James Lee’ research programme on IBD at the world-leading Crick in the Observer today (Global spread of autoimmune disease blamed on western diet).
Atomic IBD essays and Atomic IBD podcast
Atomic IBD was derived from the atomic essays I started writing back in March 2021.
You can find all of those essays (over 60 to date) on my Typeshare Social Blog
I have this weekend commenced another block of writing and will cover various aspects of IBD, gut health, digital health in addition to thoughts on personal growth and development.
Yesterday started by going back to basics with “What is inflammatory bowel disease?”
That’s it for this edition of Atomic IBD. Please subscribe if not already and share Atomic IBD. There is much more to come this year including the Atomic IBD podcast.