I'm Amber Tresca and this is about IBD.

I'm a medical writer and patient educator who lives with a J pouch due to ulcerative colitis.

It's my mission to educate people living with Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis about their disease, and to bring awareness to the patient journey.

Scientific research is important to advance our understanding of all diseases and conditions, but it's really critical in inflammatory bowel disease because these conditions are so complicated.

We now know that there may be hundreds of genes involved in the development of Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis, but not everyone who has the genes will go on to have IBD.

That's why it runs in families.

But most people with an IBD don't have a family member who also lives with the condition.

There's an environmental component, meaning that there's one or more factors that starts the process of inflammation.

Like I said, it's complicated.

My guest is Angela Clarke, the CEO and president of Propel a Cure.

Propel a cure is a grassroots nonprofit that funds research into the causes of Crohn's disease.

Angela tells us more about Propelling Cures mission, why they are so passionate about research, and what kinds of studies they fund in order to get us closer to finding cures.

Originally from Georgia, Angela received her bachelor's in political science from Maryville College and her master's degree in Western European Government and politics from the London School of Economics and Political Science.

In the past, she enjoyed a career in the federal government and also worked in local radio and television.

Most recently, she served as a marketing director at a private school.

She and her husband have a son and a daughter.

Angela became involved in propel a cure after the Crohn's diagnosis of a relative.

and she is passionate about supporting innovative research that pushes beyond the current therapy landscape to ultimately lead us to a cure.

Angela Clarke, welcome to about IBD.

Thank you so much for having me, Amber.

I'm so excited.

So am I.

I cannot wait to learn more about your organization, propel a cure, of which you are the president and CEO.

Gosh, that's a lot.

Um, so I wonder if you would start by telling me a little bit more about how you first got involved with Propel Cure.

Okay.

Well, I have just been president and CEO for just a few months now, but I originally got involved after the diagnosis of an adult child that was 5 or 6 years ago.

It was a very sudden onset, uh, aggressive onset of Crohn's disease.

And, uh, we're talking about almost every complication you can think of right away.

Three surgeries within the first nine months.

So needless to say, it was a scary time.

A worrying time of helpless feeling time.

And as a lot of people do.

I started getting on the internet, looking up everything I could think of.

Trying to learn what I could.

And in the course of doing that, I connected with the wonderful lady named Annabel Hall, who also had a child, an adult child who had been diagnosed with Crohn's.

She had started a nonprofit at 501 C3 called Propel A Cure for Crohn's Disease.

The message and the mission of this organization was so intriguing and inspiring to me that I couldn't say no when she asked me to help, so I joined the board at that time, and that's how I got involved.

I never really thought I would be heavily involved in a nonprofit, much less a leading one.

And like I said, that's a fairly new thing.

Annabel retired after putting in a good 6 or 7 years of doing so much.

And that's that's how I'm where I am today with it.

Mhm.

Amazing.

Um, yeah.

I've talked to so many people who that's that's kind of the journey.

Right.

Is that it's not something you ever thought of until it affected you and your family so deeply.

And then it becomes something that you really get called to do in a, in a passionate way.

Um, but I'm wondering, though, also because ProPublica is it's a grassroots nonprofit, and that's I know from personal experience these things are not easy to get started, get going.

Uh, how did everything begin?

Can you tell me a little bit about the history?

Okay.

Uh, Annabelle, who was our founder, who I just mentioned.

She started that, and she.

This lady, when her son was diagnosed, she also started trying to learn everything she could to the point of reading medical journals, trying to educate herself.

And actually what I consider to be very gutsy, reaching out to researchers in the field with no background.

She was very frustrated that there there isn't a cure for Crohn's disease in other Ides.

And so she started talking to researchers, contacting them and seeing a real need, finding out that there are lots of passionate scientists with bold ideas who just don't have the funding.

And so she decided she was going to step in and try to fulfill that need by raising funds for them.

So that's that's how basically the organization started.

And as time went on, she added to our board, we are all Crohn's patients or family members of Crohn's patients.

So that's what makes us unique as well.

So that's that's how we got off the ground.

It's so interesting talking to researchers.

I think one of my favorite questions ever to ask of researchers in particular is what would your dream study look like?

Like if you had any amount of funding, what would you do?

And I'll tell you, people light up like Christmas trees when you ask them that question.

So I imagine it's a gutsy thing to do.

But I also imagine that it was really a wonderful experience for researchers to hear from someone so passionate and to get those kinds of questions and to have that, to have that point of contact there from a real family that was dealing with real issues related to Crohn's disease.

I agree, because it's not often that researchers have many opportunities to come in contact with with the people or families that they're trying to help.

And one thing I meant to mention is that we're specifically targeted on the underlying causes and players in Crohn's disease, which, you know, there are a lot of studies, a lot of research going on, but we are specifically focused on that.

And that was part of our our mission.

And that's what she, Anabel started out to do.

And that's where we've stayed focused.

Right, right.

And you told me or I read it, I can't remember maybe both that ProPublica is an all volunteer organization.

That is difficult.

Uh, can you tell me, how do you make that all work?

Do you have any magic?

Well, I'll bring up that word again.

I think I've already mentioned a couple of times that passion.

I think that stems from actually having the experience with the disease yourself that keeps it going.

Uh, we want cures as much for ourselves and our loved ones as our supporters do.

So that that really ties it all in.

Uh, our team is small, but we all understand each other.

We're each other's.

We support each other beyond just our nonprofit, you know, in personal dealings as well, what we're dealing with on a day to day basis or month to month basis.

So we do talk and and keep in touch.

And I do consider them all my friends and likewise hopefully.

But I think also the passion that we feel from supporters of Propeller Corps that that have so much hope and they've expressed so much gratitude and, and they're counting on us and we we take that very, very seriously.

I think also with a small all volunteer nonprofit, you really have to know your limits because you don't have the resources of the bigger guns.

So we there's so many things we'd like to do that, you know, we have a million ideas, but we have to say to ourselves, wait, not now.

Maybe next year or some other point.

And I've been told by team members, yeah, that's great.

But, you know, we're already doing x, y, z.

So you have to know your limitations.

And that's hard sometimes because there's so many needs I think.

And I think also another thing is you have to be flexible, especially in a small organization, which is also a strength.

We're small enough that we are flexible, so we wait.

We may have certain roles, but we are able to step outside them and pitch in to other things.

And that's, that's that's a good thing.

So that helps us as well.

Yeah for sure.

And the fact that it's also like, uh, kind of a support group for you all, I mean, that's helpful too, is to have those personal connections.

And that must also fuel that passion and help you keep going because, yes, you're supporting the community, but that can sometimes feel like, oh, it's over here.

You know, it's it's like the community, um, but you have a real community in front of you all of the time that you're actually working with and supporting.

So it's just so that's how that's the magic.

That's how you're making it work, right?

A big part of it.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

So let's talk for a minute about the mission.

You have mentioned a few different things.

Uh, but how is propellor cure addressing problems that are faced by the IBD community?

Okay.

Well, our mission again is to support scientists investigating the underlying causes and players in Crohn's disease to lay the path to a cure.

And what we're trying to do is, is shake things up, shake up the status quo.

Um, and I'll say again, we're grateful for the therapies that are out there.

Thank God we have them.

We're either on them or have family members who are.

But we're trying to get beyond that because those those address the symptoms.

But we're trying to get to the causes.

Why is Crohn's happening?

You know what goes wrong in the body.

And it's such a multifactorial disease.

There's still so much we don't know.

We're making progress.

But, you know, I think we have to acknowledge that the medications currently out there don't work for everyone.

There's a significant subset of patients who are Or refractory or they don't.

Um, last, uh, and they have to jump from biologic to biologic.

So we're really trying to go beyond that.

Uh, get some other options.

And I think, you know, one of the things we're trying to do is say, you know, we see a lot of studies and that are fascinating.

And but we never hear any follow up or we see studies that, that are, you know, kind of retread some of the same ground we've seen.

So we're trying to search out new avenues, scientists who have these bold ideas.

So that's that's sort of the message we're trying to bring.

Let's let's get beyond what we have.

Let's get some options.

Wouldn't it be great to have a medication that we're not on for life, or something that we take when we have a problem and just when we have a problem with our disease?

So.

Right.

Um, and who wouldn't want that?

So those are some of the, some of those the projects that we're sponsoring are actually looking at some things like that.

So that's that gets us very excited.

I think another thing we're trying to address is that I know we've made some progress, but there's still so many people out there who don't know the series of Crohn's disease who still think it's a bathroom disease.

And so our organization and our messaging, we try to, you know, we relay the statistics and we think that's important because it needs to be taken seriously.

And I think that in turn helps the funding and helps get the message out to the population at large.

Right, absolutely.

I am 100% on board with that, and I'm chuckling a little bit at the idea of not the idea, but at the studies that are interesting and are great work.

But then they make a big splash, you hear about them and then what next?

You know, you're not hearing about.

And it probably has to do with maybe funding.

And mean, there's so many studies.

I mean, thousands and thousands of studies every year that and it's hard to keep track of.

And I know we'll probably talk about that a little later.

But there is a sense of hope that's created.

And then you're kind of saying what's next?

And and that's what we, you know, we hear from our supporters about that too.

And, and, uh, and I think it makes it hard to know sometimes which ones that you know, what's really there, what's where.

When is there something really there?

And sometimes we won't know for years if there's something there because it's going to take a lot more work.

Almost every study says more follow up needed to know.

Yeah.

Yes, yes.

When?

When I was working, uh, for a medical publishing company and we produced journals for, uh, health care providers, physicians mostly, that was something that we excised from everything that we wrote.

Don't ever say more study.

Is needed.

Because that's that's a given.

So you don't actually need to waste ink on saying that.

So, um.

Yeah, totally, totally true.

Um, with that and what I'm seeing now too, uh, being in the community, I was diagnosed at 16.

I'm 52 now.

And being in the professional, uh, writing and, uh, medical publishing community for more than 20 years, things are coming around again.

So I see people that or I hear from people who will ask me about some piece of research, some modality.

And I was like, oh, yeah, there's research on this 20 years back.

And for whatever reason, it just hasn't gone anywhere.

Maybe the pilot study was great, but then they did a big randomized study and then that didn't pan out anything.

And then the idea comes back around again 20 years later, maybe with a different approach or a different way to research it or look at the data or whatever.

And so, so so for me, sometimes I'm like, yeah, yeah, I have heard of that before.

Yeah.

And I think yeah.

And I think in the research world there's so much going on.

And researchers tend to be focused on their niche, rightfully so, that it's hard to hard to keep track of what's, what's going on and what's been studied and or how it's been studied.

And I know there they try their best and it's, it's it's a hard field to do research in.

Oh yeah.

Totally.

It's hard for anybody to keep up with everything that's going on.

I try to remember that that's a good thing, because there were a lot of years where it didn't seem like much was moving.

So things are moving along now.

And as I always say, kids, get off my lawn.

Um, having been in this space for, uh, you know, a hot minute.

Um, yeah.

So.

All right, a big thing with research is fundraising.

I mean, that's huge.

And for non-profits, it takes up a lot of time and energy.

It is also, I find it emotionally challenging.

How does propel a cure approach their fundraising efforts.

Well, that's our our biggest focus.

And.

Because we're small, there's an added benefit, another added benefit to that.

And that is we are virtual.

We are all volunteer so that more than 97% of funds go directly to research.

Our overhead is is almost negligible.

So that's that's a good thing.

That's one help in our approach.

We tend to cure.

We have found about $100,000, give or less, to be the sweet spot for the type of preclinical research we're funding.

They tend to be about two year studies, and I should have talked a little more about that.

But these are studies that take place in the lab before things ever go to trial.

And in this stage, scientists are trying to prove a hypothesis.

And what they are able to do with the studies we fund are then take them to bigger funding entities like the government, sources like the NIH, like private investors and say, this is what we have found.

Look at this data.

So we give them the ability to get that data.

And that's that's how that's what we're trying to raise money for.

And these tend to be novel.

Again innovative studies that have would have a hard time getting off the ground.

Otherwise.

They do have a hard time.

And scientific research is hard to fund anyway in the best of times.

So we see ourselves as sort of bridging that critical gap there.

We raised most of our money from family, patients, friends, and mostly online because we're a virtual organization, so we don't have in-person events.

So we really tried to get our message out, which we think really resonates, hopefully with the community and as many ways as we can and as many different channels as we can is that we're working toward a cure.

We work.

We're working for those therapeutic advances that lead us to a cure.

So that's that's how we tend to approach it.

And the other thing we do is, I think with any kind of funding for research, for any disease, it's it's a little tougher in that you don't have this immediate result.

You don't have these families that are being fed or these patients that are being supported with their needs right now.

It's this stuff takes years.

And it's, you know, it doesn't always pan out.

There's there's a risk involved with research.

So what we try to do is be very clear, by requiring those labs for sponsoring, to provide quarterly summaries of what's happened in the lab over the last quarter.

And that tells our donors what, what their money is going toward.

Now, not everybody may read every report or all of every report.

Some of it's it's kind of jargon, uh, describing what they did in the lab.

But but a lot of supporters are very interested to read that and hang on every word because it's, it's it affects them and it affects their future.

So we, we try to do that as well.

And so that we feel that helps as well in the fundraising.

Coming up, Angela tells us about the exciting research propelling her is funding.

Angela, propel a Cure funds these projects.

I imagine that it is extremely difficult to choose which ones to fund.

So how do you go about that?

We have a process that has evolved over time that has worked very well, that we're now using, and when we have the funds, we tend to raise funds as we go.

Until now, we're at the stage where we have partially funded a project, which was a big step for us, and taking that leap of faith to raise the rest of it for a two year study.

They have probably year, half of it funded, and we're confident we'll get to that two year mark.

But what we do is we have a scientific advisory board that's composed of for researchers and GI clinicians with a lot of experience in IBD.

They've been involved in studies themselves, so we rely on their expertise to help us choose.

So at this point, we do a when it is time to fund another study, we do a grant competition.

So we try to publicize it as widely as we can through our email lists social media referral.

However, we can bring it to the attention of those involved in IBD research.

And we we encourage anyone in the world to apply.

Doesn't matter what country you're in, if you're a scientist, it doesn't matter if you're in private industry or an academic institution.

Doesn't matter if you're early career or late stage, if you've been at it for years.

We just want the projects that we think will or hope will help our patients most.

And so we put out publicity about this.

We invite them to submit proposals.

And again we're looking for specifically for proposals that will be impactful, innovative.

Lay the groundwork for a cure.

Hopefully.

And so those are those are the kinds of proposals we're trying to attract.

Once we get those, we let our scientific advisory board go through those.

They have a rubric.

It's based on NIH criteria.

They are looking at things like what does it bring that's new to the field.

What if you have this kind of challenge?

What how do you pivot from that?

Do you have the infrastructure that required it would be required for this type of study.

So they're looking at all these kinds of details and they score the proposals that we receive.

And sometimes we go back.

Sometimes they have a question or a concern that we've gone back to the individual or lab submitting these proposals that they then answer.

We've had some been asked to rewrite their proposals for their projects.

So it's a very rigorous process.

And once we have the scores and the feedback of our scientific advisory board, we then talk about it as a group, go by their guidance and make that decision.

And I'm happy to say with the last competition we did that we chose a winner.

And that grant that 100,000 grant was awarded.

But we later, as we were able to raise more funds, we were able to fund a couple of more of them.

So that was very rewarding because there were there were more there were quite a few that were very interesting and very worthwhile.

So that was that was good to be able to do that.

It sounds difficult, but also kind of good problems to have, you know.

Yeah, I'm sure there's funding.

Yeah.

And that there's so many, uh, people, so many passionate researchers out there that are submitting these proposals and, you know, just excited to do the work.

And we find that the ones who do tend to I mean, they are the more innovative researchers, the ones that and are so passionate about the type of proposals that we receive.

So they're on the same page as we are and that all our patient supporters are, and they're working hard and innovative ways to to figure out these problems.

And outside the box.

Right.

Yeah.

So do you have any highlights?

Can you share some research with us?

Something that Propeller Kerr has sponsored that you found to be particularly compelling?

I'd love to.

Right now we have three projects underway that we're sponsoring.

And they all come at the disease from very different angles.

Uh, the first one is Therapeutics, which is a Boston area biotech company, and they are looking at the mucosal innate immune system, the immune system that you're born with and what they see to be a deficiency in the molecules associated with that in Crohn's patients.

So they're seeing much less of this molecule in Crohn's patients and a higher normal level in healthy patients.

So they've really been looking at that.

So far their hypothesis has been validated in the laboratory.

And they just started testing a therapeutic compound in mice that is lowering the inflammation in the mice have actually been transplanted with Crohn's disease patient tissue.

So it's it's that's been a real advance.

We are also sponsoring a project.

And these next two I'm going to mention are newer ones.

But we're also sponsoring a project at the Woolston Lab at Northeastern University in Boston.

And it's actually there, a chemical engineering department at the Woolston Lab that is looking at the role of hydrogen sulfide and intestinal inflammation.

Hydrogen sulfide is a gut found in the microbe.

And it's it's very been very poorly understood.

It's been studied a little not a lot.

And so they're trying to, uh, see what role it may play in Crohn's disease.

Higher levels of hydrogen sulfide can occur.

Hand in hand with that increased inflammation.

So they have actually engineered their own microbes, synthetic microbes, to try to manipulate the levels of hydrogen sulfide in the body.

So they have achieved that.

Uh, they found out they can they can increase, decrease, sort of manipulate that microbe.

And so now they're going to start looking at what effect it may have on the pathology of Crohn's.

And by the way, they are looking at trying to develop an oral non immunosuppressive therapeutic as part of that research, as is their therapeutics.

The other lab I mentioned that of course they're testing that compound, that compound right now in mice.

So that that is what they're looking toward.

Mhm.

And the third project we're sponsoring right now is at the Ghosh lab at UC San Diego, and they are looking at the partnership between two molecules called not, to which a lot of people may have heard of and give, which is an acronym that stands for a much longer name, but they are seeing an impaired partnership between these two molecules in Crohn's patients.

So it's essentially broken.

They've detected what they describe as sort of a broken piece of a particular type of nod to molecule.

And they're trying to and these are this partnership is involved in inflammation and bacterial clearance in healthy patients.

So something goes wrong in Crohn's patients with this.

And they're trying to look at how how can we repair this relationship.

What is what is wrong with this partnership.

And how can we make it right again so that it can improve lives of Crohn's patients?

So that's what they're looking at as well.

And that one just got started.

So those are just several examples that we're uh, we're sponsoring right now and hope to do more in the future.

It's all super exciting and it really speaks to me.

It speaks to how complicated these diseases are and the idea that there may be hundreds of forms of Crohn's disease versus just one.

It's so, as you said, it's so multifactorial.

There's just and the more you listen to these researchers, the heavier that you know, that comes home.

Because and that's why we sponsor research, try to come at it from different angles.

We don't want to put all our eggs in one basket and espouse one approach or one theory.

This is this is what we try to do because there's so many things involved.

And maybe, maybe, just maybe, one of these approaches might be the key for some relief or a cure eventually.

And that's that's good that we I think that we have several different avenues of research going on?

Absolutely, 100%.

And that's also why.

Potentially one of the many reasons why people may find that their medication that they try doesn't work for them or it fails them after a while is because, yeah, there's so much going on there that you can't just address one aspect and expect it to to work for everybody.

There's so much happening and it's individual, perhaps even for every person.

So absolutely.

It's a lot.

It's a lot.

And that's why we use the word cures.

A lot of times I think because there can be a different cure for different people or different subsets of patients, it depending on their disease in the form of it.

Right.

Yeah.

We're probably not going to find just one.

Sorry.

Everybody listening.

Uh, there's probably uh everyone's going to need something a little different.

Um, so all right, as we're talking here and we're getting into the weeds just a little bit.

And part of what I do.

Part of what you do is we communicate these very specific, very sciency things to non sciency people in order to make them more digestible and understandable.

So how does Propel a Cure go about breaking these concepts down to communicate them?

Well, first of all, I have to say that none of us are scientists or have a scientific background.

I was a humanities major, so it was when I first got involved, I was how did how do you all understand all this?

And and I think one thing is, and we don't profess to be we don't try to give advice to our supporters at all.

Sure.

You know, they should always talk with their provider.

But I think after a while of reading this, you get used to some of the jargon.

You're looking things up.

What does this mean?

And you know, other times we've we've we've asked researchers what do you think are the implications of this.

Do you have any thoughts of this study?

We go back to the labs that we're sponsoring and sort of ask their opinions sometimes.

So we we try to get just a sort of a basic knowledge of things that we can.

And then we do try to track.

One of the things we do is try to track the latest in research studies.

We are online reading those.

And the more interesting or promising ones we do try to present to our supporters because we know they're interested in that.

We are pure focused, research focused.

So what?

What we do too is for a study, if we say if we posted in social media, we try not to take for granted that a supporter knows what a T-cell is or knows what the mucosal immune system is, because I didn't know that at one point, none of us did.

And so we try to break down terms like that.

Perhaps we try to engage with researchers online about studies if they post a study.

And we also try to, if there's a study from an academic journal, will sometimes try to see, has this been in the mainstream media?

Does it cover it accurately and sort of run the mainstream media version of it?

Because let's face it, those the academic studies are a real slog and they're very hard to understand sometimes.

So that's how we try to make it a little more user friendly, because it is important.

But those are ways, I think, that that can sort of break it down for those supporters or those followers who who read what we're we're sending or what we post.

Mhm.

I love that.

And the IBD community is very smart.

And often they know so much about these diseases already and they're hungry to learn more.

So I love that you're doing that.

All right.

So Angela tell me what's next for propel a cure.

Well we would love to fund as many studies as we can.

We would love to be funding triple the number.

Quadruple the number.

Because I think we need to get as many going as possible.

That's all dependent on funding, but that would be the big goal.

This is the most we've ever funded.

At one time we funded one previous study.

Before this, we've given about $360,000 to research over the course of the last few years.

We had some interruptions during Covid.

We had to really get our fundraising in high gear, and that's really happened the past few years.

So that's our biggest goal.

We're also wanting to get involved with more organizational partnerships.

I think there's there's so many great organizations and small nonprofits involved in the IBD sphere that we would like to work together with them and support each other.

So that's one thing we're going to be trying to do more of.

We'd also love to get some corporate sponsorships and partnerships and explore that which we haven't done much of.

To this point, we've been we've been grassroots patient supported.

And we're looking at that that field as well.

So.

So those are just a few of the things that we're, we're looking at and hope for.

Amazing.

I love it.

Angela, I want to ask you a little bit more personal question.

Now get to know you a little bit more.

Um, right now you're like, oh my gosh, what are you going to ask me?

Um, so when we were talking offline in planning this episode, you told me that you have an interest in genealogy.

And I think that that's also something that's maybe a little common in the IBD community.

I'm wondering if you have any advice or anything that you would tell people who want to get started working in genealogy?

I mean, I found it that could be a whole other podcast.

But yeah, it's just been it's been so rewarding and so humbling.

And just to see some of the resilience that ancestors had and some of the stuff they went through, and I think sometimes it's it lets, you know, they went through all this, and they're the only reasons you're here.

And so I think sometimes it gives you the inner strength to, to plug through whatever we are going through.

As individuals, I have found that one of the biggest takeaways it's just been it's been amazing.

I subscribe to Ancestry.com, but you have to go really beyond that.

I think you have to have a very skeptical eye knowing that records weren't perfect.

Uh, doing your own independent research and talking, talking to your older relatives who are still alive.

Yeah.

Visiting local county libraries and courthouses and things like that to try to get the real story behind just the dates and the names, because that's the most interesting part that their lives.

And so that's really what I would what I would advise people getting started in it.

For those who are into detail in history, I think it's a very rewarding, uh, hobby.

And I really didn't get into it until after my children were out of the house.

I just didn't have time.

I started on it as a teenager, talking to great grandparents and so forth, and then I put it aside for decades because I knew once I got started, I again, I wouldn't be able to let go of it.

So I really wanted to wait until I had time to pursue it.

But that said, there are people who make time that you know, they only do it a little bit a week and you can do that as well.

Yeah, yeah.

Uh, it is a hobby of my mother's as well.

So and I think one of the key things that would not have occurred to me as a person who tends to be a little black and white and a rule follower, that you're often relying on things like census data, right?

Or, um, military records are great resources, but you are reliant on whomever took that census data to have been recording it correctly, and that's not always the case.

So you do have to have that slightly, as you said, skeptical eye.

And think about it for a minute and, um, connect it to if you can connect it to some other type of a record, or an oral history of some kind that can really help you out, because the birth dates in the census are not always right.

Who was living at whatever particular household is not always.

Right, and they're ten years old, ten years younger.

In the next census that happens to people lie about their age.

And um, so yeah, I think you have to have a skeptical eyes.

And it's a very I think once you really get into it, it's a very intuitive type hobby.

And you have to ask yourself what makes sense and what what do you know from what you've studied before, what you've seen in other people's lives at that time and other ancestors?

What was the is there a pattern?

What was the pattern here?

So it's it's it's fun.

I highly recommend it.

I would say also, there's probably a huge crossover in the critical thinking skills between looking at scientific research and looking at genealogy.

And those two things really do complement one another.

Yeah, a lot of analysis there.

A lot of analysis.

All right, Angela, as we wrap up, I would love for you to tell everyone where they can follow propel a cure across the internet.

Absolutely.

You can find us at our website at propel your and I there.

You can sign up for our quarterly e-newsletter.

You can see the latest updates, quarterly updates from our lab.

You can also.

One thing I didn't talk about is you can also watch our videos.

We do another thing we do for our supporters.

And everybody out there in the IBD community is interview researchers who are on the front lines of Crohn's disease research, and we ask basic questions.

That's another way that we try to break down the research for people.

We asked people about their studies, and if we see an interesting study, we try at times to follow up with that researcher, hey, can we do an interview with you and post it?

So that's there.

We also are on Facebook, Instagram X and LinkedIn so you can follow us there.

We also post our results, their study updates, research and so they can find us there as well.

Um, I love that.

Yeah, I will put all that information in the show notes and on my website so that people can find it there.

Angela, thank you so much for working with me to create this episode and for explaining more about ProPublica and everything that you're doing for the community.

It is really exciting and I am absolutely invigorated by your passion.

So thank you so very much.

Thank you so much for having me on, Amber.

Hey super listener, thanks to Angela Clark for finding the time to talk to me about Propeller Cure.

Propeller cure funds research into the origins of IBD in order to find cures and improve the lives of people diagnosed with these diseases.

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