Biasci D, et al. - For the identification of two phenotypically distinct subgroups of IBD, termed IBD1 and IBD2, without cell separation, researchers developed a blood-based test, in this study, that may be fit for clinical use in Crohn’s disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC). They recruited patients with active IBD prior to treatment. This study included a training cohort and validation cohorts of patients with CD (n=66) and UC (n=57). The stratification of patients into two distinct subgroups was enabled by a 17-gene qPCR-based classifier in both validation cohorts. They named patients in the qPCR subgroup analogous to IBD1 as ‘IBDhi’ and those in the subgroup analogous to IBD2 as ‘IBDlo’. Significantly more aggressive disease, earlier requirement for treatment escalation and more escalations over time were seen in IBDhi patients (analogous to the poor prognosis IBD1 subgroup) vs IBDlo patients (analogous to IBD2), irrespective of the underlying diagnosis. For the prediction of prognosis in newly diagnosed patients with IBD, the first validated prognostic biomarker is proposed in this study.