Consortium of Eosinophilic Gastrointestinal Disease Researchers, 309363

The proposed clinical research projects have been developed in partnership with patient advocacy groups with the objective of answering immediately important questions concerning the understanding and treatment of the rare diseases eosinophilic esophagitis, eosinophilic gastritis, eosinophilic gastroenteritis and eosinophilic colitis. These diseases are painful, lifelong diseases that make it difficult for individuals to function normally and in many cases to eat many or all foods. We aim to: 1) better define the diagnostic and clinical features of these diseases (Clinical Trial 1); 2) determine whether the level of tissue eosinophils, a parameter that is currently required for disease diagnosis, is an adequate measurement of clinical outcome as it has so far been assumed that the level reflects disease severity and adverse prognosis (Clinical Trail 1); 3) develop validated clinical outcome metrics (COMs) that can be used to quantitatively monitor disease (Clinical Trail 1); 4) identify and refine biomarkers on the basis of novel approaches that take advantage of direct procurement of readily accessible diseased tissue that will be subjected to whole-genome transcriptome profiling (Clinical Trial 1 and Clinical Trial 2); and 5) develop a personalized and predictive medicine approach to understanding and treating these diseases (Clinical Trial 1 and Clinical Trial 2).