Winston-Salem, N.C. – Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center, August 11, 2014.
Taking advantage of technology that can analyze tissue samples and measure the activity of thousands of genes at once, scientists at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center are on a mission to better understand and treat interstitial cystitis (IC), a painful and difficult-to-diagnose bladder condition.
“We are looking for molecular biomarkers for IC, which basically means we are comparing bladder biopsy tissue from patients with suspected interstitial cystitis to patients without the disease. The goal is to identify factors that will lead to a more definitive diagnosis, and then use this information to tailor treatments to the patient,” said senior author Stephen J. Walker, Ph.D., associate professor at Wake Forest Baptist’s Institute for Regenerative Medicine.