SP 2

Kindred cohorts - a tool for systems medicine

The causes of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) are incompletely understood, but a familial clustering of the condition has been reported. At the Institute of Epidemiology and its Biobank popgen, we are currently establishing a kindred cohort for IBD. In this prospective cohort study, we include IBD patients as well as affected and unaffected relatives of patients with IBD. Important goals of the kindred cohort are to develop clinical and molecular predictors of disease onset (in unaffected individuals) and predictors of the disease course and for the onset of complications (in affected individuals). Within the sysINFLAME consortium, we perform genetic, molecular and biochemical analyses in blood and stool samples of the kindred cohort participants. These data will be analysed in combination with the repeatedly collected medical information in an integrated fashion.