INTERCEPT

Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) affects millions of people, causing severe symptoms and health risks. Crohn's Disease (CD), one of the most common forms of IBD, is chronic and incurable, causing a loss of quality of life and work productivity. Often CD is diagnosed at a later stage, when many patients have already developed complications. Biomarkers – measurable substances found in body fluids – are used in the early detection of other chronic inflammatory diseases before symptoms present but lack broad validation in CD.

The INTERCEPT project aims to change this by validating biomarkers from European and North American cohorts and creating a blood risk score to identify those at high risk. Recruiting 10,000 healthy first-degree relatives of CD patients across Europe, INTERCEPT is testing early detection and prevention strategies, potentially stopping symptoms before they begin, enabling healthcare professionals to diagnose the disease early on and reduce the burden on patients and society.