CCFA’s Microbiome Initiative: One Step Closer to a Cure
Researchers have been working hard to find a cure for Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD). IBD is an enormously complex disease that affects 1.4 million Americans. The unpredictable chronic disease has no specific known cause, and no cure. The Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation of America (CCFA) created the Microbiome Initiative in March of 2008 to understand microbial intestinal agents and the role they play in IBD.
The Microbiome Initiative has four specific goals in their comprehensive research project:
(1) Identifying the components, genes and metabolic products of intestinal bacteria and viruses in normal healthy people
(2) Comparing the bacterial and viral species, genes and metabolic products in IBD patients with those of normals to identify unique differences in IBD patient
(3) Developing bioinformatic techniques to analyze these huge data sets so that all IBD investigators can effectively utilize the results, which will be in public databases accessible to all investigators
(4) Developing a gene chip that can easily be used by IBD investigators to determine if a functional gene is present in a clinical or experimental sample.
In the past six years, researchers have analyzed the impact of viruses in IBD patients, the microbial composition of different subsets of IBD, and taken a closer look at genes that may be related to the disease.The discoveries made with this project will improve the way the disease is diagnosed and treated. The science behind it is intense, but the role it plays in the IBD community isn’t difficult to comprehend. IBD patients should be optimistic and feel confident about the fact that everyday we come one step closer to finding a cure.
http://www.ccfa.org/
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