The forum will be chaired by Professor Eamonn Quigley, Professor
of Medicine at UCC, Consultant Gastroenterologist at Cork University Hospital
(CUH) and Principal Investigator at the APC. Professor Quigley and his colleagues, Professor Colin Hill,
UCC and Dr Orla Craig, CUH, will each give presentations followed by a question
and answer session with the audience
Professor Quigley, in his talk titled “Post-infectious IBS; what
is it and who gets it?” will speak about Post-infectious IBS, which is IBS that develops following an outbreak of
food-poisoning or water-borne infections. In recent years, careful follow-up of large numbers of
people following community outbreaks of gut infections has clearly defined the
existence of post-infectious irritable bowel syndrome (PI-IBS). About 10% of
people who have an episode of gastroenteritis will go on to develop PI-IBS and
if the outbreak has been very severe this number may reach as high as 33%! Research exploring the pathology,
genetics and immunology of this entity has thrown new light on IBS, in general
and may open new therapeutic avenues.
Professor
Colin Hill will discuss the concept of using beneficial bacteria to fight
infection in the developing world.
Infectious disease continues to claim the lives of
almost 10 million children every year, many of them from the scourge of
diarrhoea. In addition to these deaths, diarrhoea and malnutrition create
a deadly cycle of infectious disease which has lifelong consequences for the
survivors in terms of life expectancy, intellectual capacity and even adult
stature and work productivity. Using beneficial bacteria (often marketed as
probiotics) to fight infection in the developing world is a novel strategy that
might provide an economically viable, long-term strategy to break the disease
cycle and improve the health and quality of life of some of the world’s most
disadvantaged populations. Professor Hill will use examples of research
conducted in the Alimentary Pharmabiotic Centre in Cork to indicate the
potential of this novel approach.
Dr Orla Craig’s talk “IBS, food and stress: new insights, new
approaches” will focus on the influence of the brain on IBS symptoms and new
therapies directed at this brain-gut link. She will also discuss which foods are likely to help or
exacerbate IBS symptoms and try to dispel some of the myths surrounding food
and IBS.
About
the Alimentary Pharmabiotic Centre
The
Alimentary Pharmabiotic Centre, (APC; http://apc.ucc.ie
) is a research centre funded by Science Foundation Ireland and industry
partners. The APC, a partnership between University College Cork,
Teagasc, the Irish Agriculture and Food Development
Authority, and the Cork Institute of Technology, focuses on research in
gastrointestinal health. Pharmabiotic is a neologism devised by the APC
to represent any material (including molecules and microbes) originating from
the gut ecosystem that can be exploited for a health benefit, and includes
probiotics, prebiotics, metabolites, and potential new anti-microbials and
anti-inflammatories. The independent
international ratings agency Thomson Reuters Science Watch global analysis, recently ranked University College Cork at number 2 in the world for probiotics
research, due primarily to publications from researchers in the Alimentary
Pharmabiotic Centre (http://sciencewatch.com/ana/st/probiotics/institution/)
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