A little girl has spoken for the first time in four years thanks to cutting-edge genomic research. Her first word was “mama”.

SARA Byrne has had three major surgeries to bring her inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) under control, but she has reason to be hopeful.

More than 2.5 million people in Europe have irritable bowel syndrome. Now, an Irish study aims to find out more, writes Áilín Quinlan