Liver

News • Insights into bile production

Liver discovery could lead to better CVD treatments

A new discovery about how the liver flushes cholesterol from the body could lead to more effective treatments for cardiovascular disease – the leading cause of death worldwide.

News • Research aboard the International Space Station

How liver tissue from the ISS may transform tissue engineering

An “out-of-this-world” project has the potential to transform the future of tissue engineering and liver transplantation through research conducted aboard the International Space Station (ISS).

News • Hydrogel catalyst

Breaking down alcohol in the body: Researchers develop "detox gel"

Researchers have developed a gel that breaks down alcohol in the GI tract without harming the body. In the future, people who take the gel could reduce the harmful and intoxicating effects of alcohol.

News • Focus on protein GDF15

Newfound mechanism could improve efficiency of diabetes treatments

Research reveals how a new mechanism could improve the efficiency of current treatments for diabetes. This may open up new ways of approaching metabolic diseases that are a global health problem.

News • Promising study in mice

Exploring the potential of mRNA technology for rare diseases

Coronavirus vaccines have showcased the possibilities of messenger RNA (mRNA) technology. Now, a research team aims to put it to use against a rare inherited metabolic disorder.

News • Organ preservation

Perfusion machine takes time pressure off liver transplantation

A special perfusion machine preserves donor livers for an extended period of time without compromising organ quality. New Dutch research has confirmed the safety of the procedure for recipients.

News • Rapid, non-invasive test

Detecting chronic liver disease with targeted MRI

A research team has developed a nanoparticle-based contrast agent with the properties necessary to successfully use MRI for targeted diagnosis of liver fibrosis.

News • Study examines diagnostic quality

Ultrasound in obese patients: special probes improve imaging

High-BMI patients are a challenge for abdominal sonography. In a new study, researchers point out the benefits of special high-performance probes and their impact on image quality.

News • The role of arginine

Cancer research: Metabolite drives tumor development

University of Basel scientists have discovered that high levels of the amino acid arginine drive metabolic reprogramming to promote tumor growth. This could lead to improved liver cancer treatment.

News • 3D tissue culture platform

"Mini liver" shows promise for drug discovery

A European team of researchers have successfully developed a new, living organ model which could advance rapid testing of new or common drugs to treat diseases of the liver.

News • Neurodegeneration

The importance of the liver-brain axis in Alzheimer's disease

A research team from Barcelona studied the liver of Alzheimer's disease mice models, and demonstrated the importance of the liver-brain axis regarding the psychological symptoms of the disease.

News • Alternative to liver biopsy

Exploring the benefits of non-invasive MR Elastography in obese patients

Omar Darwish, PhD student at King's College London, is researching new approaches to 3D MRE sequences for measuring liver fibrosis and inflammation simultaneously in obese patients.

News • OrQA

Transplant organ quality assessment via AI: a promising approach

A pioneering new method to assess the quality of organs for donation has the potential to revolutionise the transplant system, saving lives and tens of millions of pounds.

News • Preventing EBV reactivation

Liver transplantation: Finding the "sweet spot" of immuno-suppression

Dutch physicians have developed a system to determine the right dose of immunosuppressive drugs for patients to receive a donor liver - to prevent the activation of the Epstein-Barr virus.

Article • Imaging advances

Liver disease assessment: AI may give CT the edge over MRI

To assess diffuse liver disease, MRI is currently the modality of choice. New developments in artificial intelligence (AI) could tip the scales in favour of CT imaging. At ECR 2022 in July, experts showed how AI technology enables CT to quantify liver fat as exquisitely as MRI.

News • Tumour shrinking

"Downstaging" liver cancer before transplant improves outcomes

Treating liver cancer tumours to shrink them in order to allow the patient to qualify for a liver transplant leads to excellent 10-year post-transplant outcomes, according to new research.

News • HCC in vitro research

Organoids give new clues to liver cancer progression

Newly engineered in vitro tumour models open ways to better understand the crosstalk between liver cancer cells and their microenvironment, researchers from Singapore found.

News • World premiere

A liver was treated in a machine and successfully transplanted

The research team Liver4Life has treated an originally damaged human liver in a machine for three days outside a body and then implanted the recovered organ into a cancer patient.

News • Faulty gene is catalyst

New liver and kidney disease identified

Scientists have identified a new disease in a ground-breaking discovery that could help patients with unexplained liver and kidney problems.

News • Viral gateway found

3D analysis gives insights into how Hepatitis enters the liver

Scientists from France and Belgium gained insights into the structure and function of a central liver protein: NTCP, a cellular-entry pathway for bile salts – but also for certain hepatitis viruses.

News • The fatal signalling pathway

How liver fibrosis causes tissue scarring

An international research team has now found an approach to lower the activation of hepatic stellate cells (HSCs) and reduce the associated development of liver fibrosis.

News • Mini-livers on a chip

Organoids: step towards hepatitis C vaccine

A platform for studying how the human immune system responds to hepatitis C infection by combining microfluidic technology with liver organoids could speed the hunt for a vaccine.

News • Hard to break down

Hepatitis E: Most common hand infectants no match for HEV

Scientists have investigated the effectiveness of various common hand disinfectants against hepatitis E. They were able to show that most formulations do not completely inactivate the virus.

A looming pandemic and the need for physician partnerships to leverage non-invasive testing

Even as we battle one pandemic (Covid-19), we sit on the cusp of another. Europe has one of the highest burdens of chronic liver disease (CLD) in the world, driven largely by alcohol overconsumption, viral hepatitis, and obesity. Furthermore, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is increasingly common and is a significant contributor to CLD – especially in people with diabetes, where its…

Article • An estimated 800,000 deaths in 2030

Warning of looming global liver disease pandemic

Professor Dina Tiniakos, from the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, predicts that NASH (Non-alcohol related steatohepatitis) cases will soar worldwide by 2030, with 800,000 liver deaths, costing health economies billions of dollars.

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