Christina Stankey

Postdoc @ArcInstitute

[Christina Stankey @ctstankey]

@BrodinPetter Thank you Petter!

[James Lee @Dr_James_Lee]

There's been amazing coverage of our new paper @Nature https://t.co/qkrUksBYVW but I wanted to put together a walk-through (and make this accessible as possible). It's a bit long so get a cup of tea! The full version is open access so pls do have a read if you are interested...

[Christina Stankey @ctstankey]

@RMedzhitov @philipcball Thank you Ruslan!

[Matthew Kirshner @MattyKirsh]

Anyone interested in how new drug targets are discovered should check out this paper by @ctstankey and @Dr_James_Lee where they follow a trail of genomic breadcrumbs to find a potential cause of IBD.

This is how you get from a GWAS hit on a 'random' stretch of junk DNA to a new drug target:
1) Start with a GWAS hit for a stretch of non-coding mystery DNA that makes someone at-risk for 5 inflammatory diseases but no one knows why
2) Identify that the GWAS hit is an enhancer for an unknown gene in a specific type of immune cell (macrophages)
3) Figure out that it enhances a specific gene (ETS2) 290,000 bases away
4) Show that more of ETS2 results in more of the bad inflammatory cytokines and that removing ETS2 results in less.
5) Validate step 4 in lots of different ways
6) Use an approved drug that hits a target upstream of ETS2 to show that this minimizes the inflammation typical of IBD in the lab

[Christina Stankey @ctstankey]

@BrodinPetter @Dr_James_Lee @TheCrick Thank you Petter!

[Christina Stankey @ctstankey]

@maxgabgut @Dr_James_Lee Thank you Max!

[Eric Topol @EricTopol]

Discovery of a major underpinning of inflammatory bowel disease in a gene desert
https://t.co/guRccG0J17
@Nature @TheCrick