Dr. David Padua, an assistant professor of medicine in the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, and a collaborator at Stanford University, have received a $200,000 grant from the Kenneth Rainin Foundation for research supporting patients with inflammatory bowel disease.
The Rainin foundation provides funding each year to teams that aim to improve understanding and treatment of inflammatory bowel diseases, the most common of which include Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis. Padua’s was one of four teams that received a 2018 Synergy Award from the foundation.
Padua, who is part of the UCLA Vatche and Tamar Manoukian Division of Digestive Diseases, and Stanford’s Karla Kirkegaard are conducting research to understand how gene regulation and signaling pathways relate to inflammatory bowel disease. In particular, they are examining how RNA regulates inflammation and affects disease development. Their work stands to reveal new ways for health care professionals to diagnose and treat inflammatory bowel disease.
“This gift is pivotal in allowing us to combine our basic science and clinical translational research toward new discoveries in the field of IBD,” Padua said. “We’re grateful the Kenneth Rainin Foundation saw the potential for our work to improve the lives of patients suffering from these diseases.”
