Tim Angeli-Gordon with the endoscopic gut sensor device. Photo: Supplied / University of Auckland
A University of Auckland researcher has won a prestigious Royal Society award for his work on diagnosing and treating chronic gut problems.
Research by Dr Tim Angeli-Gordon and his team has led to the development of a new medical device - an endoscopic gut sensor - that allows doctors to diagnose hard-to-identify stomach complaints without invasive surgery.
Angeli-Gordon said he was honoured to received the Royal Society's 2024 Cooper Award.
"The Cooper Award is for early career excellence in science and engineering, so it's a huge honour to get the recognition. I've sort of pinched myself, it still feels a bit surreal."
Angeli-Gordon said patients with gastrointestinal disorders could suffer debilitating symptoms.
"I've met patients who vomit 10 times a day, can't eat normal meals, and oftentimes are malnourished or sometimes obese as well, because all the food that they can get in is actually just high sugar, fizzy drinks and those sorts of foods."
Often they had limited options for diagnosis and treatment, he said.
He was passionate about changing that.
"One of the challenges that we hear a lot with the gastrointestinal system... there's just very few ways of describing stomach problems and so it's difficult for patients who are wanting a diagnosis and a solution, but it's also difficult for clinicians who want to be able to serve their patients. So it's really rewarding for me to try and come up with new solutions and engineering innovations."
Tim Angeli-Gordon (centre) with Distinguished Professors Geoff Chase (left) and Dame Jane Harding from the Royal Society. Photo: Supplied / University of Auckland
The new endoscopic mapping device consisted of an inflatable sphere covered in sensors which was inserted via the oesophagus, and was able to measure electrical activity in the gut, Angeli-Gordon said.
"We no longer have to team up with surgeons and go in with open surgery, we can now put electrodes down the throat into the stomach - minimally invasive now. It's a really exciting step forward."
Angeli-Gordon was the lead author of the 2015 paper Loss of Interstitial Cells of Cajal and Patterns of Gastric Dysrhythmia in Patients with Chronic Unexplained Nausea and Vomiting. He said these results laid the foundation for the new device.
His research team had completed pre-clinical trials with the device and published a feasibility study.
Angeli-Gordon said researchers into chronic gut diseases had long struggled with access to funding compared with more high-profile complaints like cancer or heart disease.
"There's a bit of a taboo about [gastrointestinal problems], it's not spoken about as much, sometimes we've heard it called a silent epidemic, although there's so many people suffering from gastrointestinal problems.
"That does seem to be changing a little bit; we hear a lot about gut cancers and those sort of issues so I think we're starting to change the tide on that but we're definitely well behind some of those other fields."
Chronic gut research would benefit from high-profile recognition in awards like those from the Royal Society, he said.
"One way is just to get people talking about it and aware of it ... another benefit can be funding-wise, the higher profile the more that people know about something the easier it is to attract funding."
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