The Jess Group: Molecular and Clinical Epidemiology of Inflammatory Bowel Disease

Professor Tine Jess is the Director of the PREDICT Center and is chairing the activities of the center.

She has a specific interest in the molecular prediction of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), both in terms of development and course of disease.

The key resource is The Danish National Biobank, which stores neonatal blood spots and blood samples drawn before and after IBD diagnosis. These samples are linkable to the Danish nationwide registers which record longitudinal data on disease diagnoses, medications, and endoscopic and surgical procedures for all patients with IBD in Denmark. The samples in the Danish National Biobank and the nationwide registers are furthermore linkable to the Danish National Birth Cohort, a nationwide study of pregnant women and their offspring, including granular data on lifestyle and environmental risk factors on more than 100,000 women and their offspring.

Utilizing neonatal blood spots and blood samples from the Danish National Biobank for patients with IBD sampled up to 20 years before IBD diagnosis, the group uses multi-omics technologies to identify the triggering events and early pathogenic pathways of IBD. In addition to elucidating the etiopathogenesis of IBD, this research is also expected to pave the way for a new omics-based classification of IBD beyond clinical and organ-based phenotyping. The sample sizes for the investigations are substantial as the biobank holds neonatal blood spots on more than 10,000 individuals who later developed IBD, blood samples drawn before diagnosis of IBD on more than 3000 individuals, and post-diagnostic samples on more than 15,000 individuals.

In addition to exploring the molecular patterns behind development and course of IBD, the Jess group has a specific interest in phenome-wide association studies, co-morbidities to IBD, and risk of cancer in IBD.

Tine Jess is Professor MD DMSc, Director of the National Center of Excellence for Molecular Prediction of Inflammatory Bowel Disease, PREDICT. She is Fellow of the Royal Danish Academy for Sciences and Letters and Member of the Danish Council for Research and Innovation advising the Danish Parliament. Professor Jess is highly cited in the field of IBD and recipient of several awards and honors for her research.

Author ORCID: 0000-0002-4391-7332