Rachel Bonner, a sixteen-year-old high school student and founder of the Hope for Crohn's charity, speaks about what it's like living with Crohn's disease, a type of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) in which the intestines are chronically inflamed. The sustained inflammation eventually damages the gut wall causing the symptoms of IBD. Current therapies for IBD focus solely on treating the inflammation. Dr. Ophir Klein, a CIRM grantee and UCSF researcher, details his lab's work to understand how stem cells regulate the healing of the intestine and to eventually find cures for IBD. Although Rachel and her doctors have found a treatment sweet spot, which has kept her Crohn's at bay, she still holds out hope that a cure, perhaps from a stem-cell based therapy, is not too far away.
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