“It was startling to see something so clean emerge from a study with so many variables,” senior author John Storey said in a statement.
Storey’s team evaluated blood samples from 168 blunt-force trauma patients, leading to 50,000 documented gene expressions. They found that changes in gene activity and expression in the patients’ immune systems tended to coincide with the worsening of a patient’s condition, with two specific sets of genes demonstrating significant fluctuations in expression as patients developed complications and approached death.
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Upon identifying the genes that corresponded with a patient’s health, the scientists created a model that they hope will help physicians find mechanisms to control and treat trauma.
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