Environment-related diseases

The barriers of the body are the crucial interaction point for host defense of a complex organism against its environment. Most of the human barrier organs can be effected by chronic inflammatory disorders. From genetic etiology but also from epidemiological studies it has become clear that chronic inflammatory diseases of barrier organs are caused by a polygenic susceptibility. Nevertheless, environmental trigger factors, that reside in the lifestyle of modern industrialized civilizations, are important causes for the manifestation of disease in genetically susceptible individuals. In the network different groups have joined in their efforts to uncover the polygenic susceptibility of environment-related diseases of barrier organs. The projects are interlinked with the wish to also define general inflammation susceptibility genes and to reach conclusive understanding of a disease driven systems biology, independent of the effected organ. With strong translational efforts pathophysiological pathways are discovered that offer novel targets for future intervention, be it for therapy or for the prevention of manifestation of disease. With access to the large German population-representative biobank “popgen“ the groups can use control populations and also infrastructure to generate quality controlled follow up of their patient populations.

Latest results can be found in detail in the descriptions of the subprojects.