Palo Alto, Calif., September 27, 2002 In an effort to find a safe and effective pill to treat the widespread disease Celiac Sprue, Stanford chemist and engineer Chaitan Khosla today announced the founding of the Celiac Sprue Research Foundation, a non-profit public charity. The Foundation has been established to help improve the lives of the approximately 1 in 200 people afflicted with Celiac Sprue by promoting research and development, and by enhancing awareness of the disease among scientists, clinicians, the pharmaceutical industry, food product manufacturers and the general public. Dr. Khosla's latest research, published today in Science, reveals the possibility for enzyme therapy as a way to treat the widespread disease, Celiac Sprue, caused by a toxic reaction to gluten that produces malabsorption of foods and vitamins.
"After helplessly watching the disease's debilitating impact on my son's early childhood, and later discovering my wife was also a Celiac, I decided to apply my knowledge of chemistry, biology and drug development to Celiac Sprue," explained Dr. Khosla, Founder and President of the Celiac Sprue Research Foundation.
Dr. Khosla's collaborator Gary M. Gray, M.D., professor of medicine emeritus and former Chief of the Gastroenterology Division, and Director of the NIH-supported Digestive Disease Center at Stanford University Hospital, is equally enthusiastic. "The high frequency of Celiac Sprue is not generally appreciated by physicians in the Untied States, and patients often suffer for many years before the diagnosis is made. Then the requirement for a strict lifelong diet devoid of wheat and most grains becomes a burden for the patient and their families. Thus the potential for taking a supplemental peptidase to break up the gluten peptides may offer an important alternative to the restrictive diet sometime in the near future."
Gluten Is Toxic For Celiac Sprue Patients
Gluten is one of the mo
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Contact: Chaitan Khosla
csrf@celiacsprue.org
650-251-9865
Celiac Sprue Research Foundation
26-Sep-2002
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