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>> What I find exciting about inflammatory bowel disease is
that 20 years ago there were two therapies essentially for it, well maybe three.
And they had variable success, but in the long run, they ultimately weren't very successful.
We've learned over the work of hundreds of researchers and scientists across the world
that this is a very complex condition which involves both the genes that you were born with,
the immune system you develop, and also where you live,
where you inhabitate, where you grow up.
And it's such a complex disease that we're finding new ways to treat it,
new ways to understand it, and new ways to predict what's going to happen.
So there is genetic facets of this condition, there are immune facets of this condition,
and then also what has become very new is the microbio, or the types of bacteria that live
and coexist in our body actually seem to interact with our immune system and genes
in a way that may or may not produce this condition.
So this is an explosion of knowledge over the past 15 to 20 years' time,
and with that has come new ways to diagnose and treat, you know, this often very young
and otherwise pretty healthy population.
People can go from well and functioning very well at school or their job
to being completely debilitated by this condition.
Since it involves the intestines and the bowel, there is a lot of stigma associated with that,
and people aren't as ready to openly discuss it with people,
not like their heart or their joints.
So outside of the scientific side, this condition allows you
to form a very special relationship with your patients, because the symptoms
from this condition are often rather personal, and if you can break through that
and let them know that there's people that understand this and people that can help them
out through it, it's a really satisfying job to have.