Traumatic injury sets off a ‘genomic storm’
Serious traumatic injuries, including major burns, set off a “genomic storm” in human immune cells, altering around 80 percent of the cells’ normal gene expression patterns. In a report to appear in the December Journal of Experimental Medicine, members of a nationwide research collaborative describe the initial results of their investigation into the immune system response to serious injury, findings that overturn some longstanding assumptions. “We have discovered there is a highly reproducible genomic response to injury that is essentially the same — no matter the patient’s individual genetic background, whether the injury was caused by major trauma or serious burns, or if recovery is rapid or complicated,” said Ronald G. Tompkins, director of the Sumner Redstone Burn Center at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and principal investigator of the study. “When this project was organized more than a decade ago, the question was raised whether responses would differ so much from person...