About the project
The pathogenesis of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is complex and not completely understood. It is assumed to encompass a dysregulation of the immune response against the intestinal microbiota in genetically susceptible individuals.
Recently, mounting evidence is pointing to the microbiome as a driver of IBD. IBD patients are shown to have reduced microbial diversity and as well as specific changes in the microbial composition.
Disease course and treatment
The disease course of IBD is heterogeneous with several different treatment options.
In recent years, the importance of early and target treatment of high-risk patients has been recognized to limit the development of complicated disease behavior.
Method and data sets
This project is a collaboration with the Norwegian company Bio-Me, which has developed Precision Microbiome Profiling (PMP), a novel tool for microbiome profiling optimized for clinical applications.
Through IBSEN III, 1535 participants (70 %) donated fecal samples at inclusion, and the samples are analyzed by PMP and the standard microbiome profiling techniques.
Aim of research
We are aiming to develop PMP-based microbiome profiles with diagnostic and prognostic capacity for optimal patient care and treatment in combining results from microbiome profiling with clinical data from the IBSEN III study collected throughout first year of diagnosis.