Research

My interest is the molecular genetics of Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis. Our IBD repository consists of >3000 DNA samples recruited from patients across Eastern England, intestinal biopsies from >400 IBD cases plus serum and stool samples. Current interests include fine mapping of the 99 confirmed IBD susceptibility loci identified to date – using sequencing and array-based technologies together with expression and functional studies; correlation of association signals with immediate clinical end-points such as drug response and need for surgery in IBD; investigation of differential methylation in colonoscopic biopsies from IBD cases and controls; and participation in both investigator-led and commercial trials of new therapies in IBD.

We have close working relationships with colleagues at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, with members of the UK and international IBD genetics research consortia, chaired by MP, and with the Wellcome Trust Case Control Consortium.

Selected References

Lee JC, Lyons PA, McKinney EF, Sowerby JM, Carr EJ, Bredin F, Rickman HM, Ratlamwala H, Hatton A, Rayner TF, Parkes M, Smith KG. Gene expression profiling of CD8+ T cells predicts prognosis in patients with Crohn disease and ulcerative colitis.  J Clin Invest. 2011 Oct 3;121(10):4170-9

Franke A, McGovern DP … Hakonarson H, Daly MJ, ParkesM.  Genome-Wide Meta-Analysis Increases to 71 the Number of Confirmed Crohn’s Disease Susceptibility Loci. Nature Genetics. 2010 Dec;42(12):1118-25

Anderson CA, … Daly MJ, Barrett JC, Parkes M, Annese V, Hakonarson H, Radford-Smith G, Duerr RH, Vermeire S, Weersma RK, Rioux JD. Meta-analysis identifies 29 additional ulcerative colitis risk loci, increasing the number of confirmed associations to 47.Nat Genet. 2011 Mar;43(3):246-52.

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