Inflammatory bowel disease is a chronic recurring disease of the gastrointestinal tract and can be manifested as ulcerative colitis. In Germany, Austria and Switzerland about 400,000 patients suffer from ulcerative colitis. Hereby, Europe has the highest reported prevalence worldwide with 505 per 100,000 people being affected Symptoms include diarrhea, abdominal cramps, and rectal bleeding. Considering current guidelines, anti-inflammatory and immunosuppressive drugs or biologics are used for treatment. Due to common adverse effects and lack of efficacy of standard therapies, a widespread discovery effort has been launched to identify new drugs from natural sources.

Our scientific project aims to evaluate the use of herbal extracts of Viola tricolor as treatment of chronic inflammatory bowel diseases, especially ulcerative colitis. We have teamed up to perform cell-based signaling, mechanism-of-action and toxicity studies with tea infusions (Ph. Eur.) and experimental herbal violet extracts. Further, we aim to extract, isolate and chemically characterize novel immunomodulatory molecules from these preparations. Development of standardized extract preparation, based on the bioactive compounds of V. tricolor, will be employed. Furthermore, safety and efficacy of optimized herbal violet preparation will be assessed and documented following state-of-the-art Case Reporting guidelines, in a cohort of patients suffering from ulcerative colitis.