Modifying a lead compound to optimize prevention of adhesion formation

If you have an operation in your abdominal cavity (eg., C-section, hernia repair, appendectomy, gall bladder removal and many more procedures) your chances of having to go back to hospital and be re-operated due to intestinal occlusion, pain etc is 4%. Because these operations make up 5 of the 10 most common surgeries, this 4% adds up to hundreds of thousands of patients that need to be re-operated. The reason why is because they have had adhesions form (large rope like structures of cartilage) that cause many complications. There is no good way of preventing these adhesions from forming. Moreover, in some women if this happens it cause unnoticed and yet there is a good chance they will develop infertility. This is devastating and there is no way to predict who will develop adhesions and there is no treatment available. The Kubes lab can use a special microscope and look into the abdominal cavity and see adhesions form and uncovered how this happens. They formed a company and found a drug that can prevent this from happening and are now testing numerous related drugs to find the best one.

Faculty Supervisor:

Paul Kubes

Student:

Partner:

Medhesions Inc.

Discipline:

Life Sciences

Sector:

Professional, scientific and technical services

University:

Queen's University

Program: