Narrator: This is Science Today. A pro-inflammatory protein has been found to contribute to Crohn's Disease, a chronic inflammatory bowel disease that affects more than half a million Americans and is considered a high risk factor for colon cancer. Michael Karin, a professor of pharmacology at the University of California, San Diego led the study.

Karin: What we do is introduce the same mutation that is present in the diseased gene in humans into the mouse gene and this is possible because the genes are very, very similar in human and mouse.

Narrator: Karin and his colleagues identified interleukin-1Beta, or il1-beta, as a major cause of severe inflammation in the mouse model of Crohn's Disease.

Narrator: So that led us to consider that maybe il-1beta plays a very important role in the pathogenesis of this inflammatory response that we see in the mice. So we think that il-1 beta needs to be examined as maybe an important mediator of Crohn's Disease in human patients.

Narrator: For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.