Background and current state of research
Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) describes a group of disorders that involve chronic inflammation of the digestive tract. The incidence of this disease has increased since the 20th century. One of the hypotheses is that smoking interacts with IBD risk genes influencing the disease. Nevertheless, the intestinal microbiome in humans can also be affected by tobacco smoke while the intestinal microbiome is known to interact with the host and influence its health.
This is a project within the DFG Research Unit RU5042 miTarget.
Our goals
In this project the interaction between the environment, gene variants and the microbiome will be studied. We want to investigate if and how smoking can change the risk of developing IBD and if and how the microbiome has a driving role in changing the risk.