Beaumont gets $3.8M grant fromU.S. Defense Department

Urology researchers to use funding for bladder study

Beaumont urology researches have received a $3.8 million grant from theU.S. Department of Defense to develop a screening test that will speed diagnosis and treatment of a chronic bladder condition.

The Beaumont study, led by investigator Laura Lamb, Ph.D., director of translational Urology Research, Beaumont Research Institute, seeks new treatments for a chronic bladder condition called interstitial cystitis, or IC.

The condition “can affect an individual’s ability to serve his or her country,” Lamb said in a statement. “Our hope is that we can help with military readiness, as well as the general well-being and health of service members.”

People with the condition can suffer intense pain, frequent urination, and an urgency to urinate. The effects can interfere with a person’s sleep or even the ability to hold a job.

IC is now treated with various medications.

The big problem is that there is no easy screening test.

“Symptoms overlap with other illnesses, so it becomes a diagnosis of elimination,” said Dr. Lamb.

It is estimated the condition affects from 4 million to 12 million people in the U.S., many of them in their 30s, 40s and 50s.

The grant from the DOD is among the largest ever received by a Beaumont research team.

Richard H. Kennedy, Ph. D., director of the Beaumont Research Institute, said in a statement Lamb and her team have received federal funding for their research that targets development of a new diagnostic urine test and machine learning to facilitate quick diagnosis and clinical management of IC.

“Machine learning teaches computers to learn without being programmed,” Kennedy said.

Participants for the study are being recruited nationwide with social media support from the Interstitial Cystitis Association. The goal is to have 3,000 IC patients and 1,000 patients without the condition take part in the study, including military members and civilians.

Dr. Michael Chancellor, a co-investigator on the study and professor of urology at Oakland University William Beaumont School of Medicine, said in a statement the research may lead to a significant advancement in IC treatment.

“This is one of the first advanced medical technology studies using machine learning to develop a new diagnostic test,” he said. “Also … social media will be utilized as a recruitment tool. If successful, this could lead to FDA approval based on groundbreaking work by Beaumont.”