RESEARCHING THE GENE
At the root of the problem of inflammation
One cause of chronic inflammation lies in a combination of letters: A, C, G and T - Adenine, Cytosine, Guanine and Thymine. The inheritance molecule of just one single cell consists of around three billion of these tiny modules, squeezed together into a few thousands of a millimeter in the cell nucleus. The variability of these nucleotides - A, C, G and T - strung together here is infinite, and their specific sequence is what goes to make up human beings. It is scarcely believable that this combination decides not only on fair or dark hair but also whether a person is sick or healthy.
This hereditary material with such importance is hidden in the human cell. Chemically, A, C, G and T are deoxyribonucleic acids, DNA. The important aspect is the individual sequence in which these nucleotides are arranged: it determines how a biochemical command is given - for example why, at the end of a complex chain of molecular effects as a consequence of the genetic signal, more plaque is deposited in the arteries, bacteria cause the wall of the intestine to become porous or even why aggressive pathogenic free radicals are successfully kept in check so a person remains largely healthy as they age. A prior decision as to sick and healthy is taken here, in the human nucleus.
Picture gallery gene (11 images)
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When A, C, G and T cause illness
In fact, even thousands of years ago Homo sapiens already had the minimal peculiarities in the genome that make him sick today. Humans have not changed genetically since then. They just didn't notice any of the unusual ACGT combinations at that time because they didn't cause illness then. That's why genetic predispositions on their own cannot explain this phenomenon of the modern era, the dramatic increase in chronic inflammatory diseases. There must be other factors in addition - fundamentally changed environmental conditions and modern habits of life and diet are strongly suspected - to allow a gene nowadays to set in motion the devastating chain of molecular events at the end of which the body's own defenses destroy whole organs.
Preventing illness from the outset
Intensive research is taking place here, at the start of the fatal cascade: today, since the full decoding in 2001 of the genome, the building plan for a human being, disease-causing genes have already been identified for each individual inflammatory illness. A few milliliters of blood are enough to extract the hereditary material of a human being from the vital fluid - and then to search through it with gigantic analysis robots. The high-tech machines decode the test person's molecular book of life - A, C, G, T in all their millions of variations. Then the researchers find out which of these tiny modules are conspicuous in sick people and discover the effects in the body that originate from them. The aim: to use the detailed understanding of the mechanisms of disease to redefine medicine - away from reacting to incorrect developments in the body and towards developing creative prevention strategies, then individually matching them to each single patient's genetic makeup.
This is why the genetic material of whole generations is being meticulously investigated and compared. Old with young, sick with healthy. Blood and tissue samples from more than 130,000 people are already in storage for this purpose at -80 degrees in the Biobank at the "Inflammation Research Excellence Cluster".
Technical literature for further reading: