News by Subject Medicine & Health

Mose model shows that SOX9 gene influences the severity Alagille syndrome.

Researchers have identified a novel therapeutic strategy to significantly improve liver disease in people living with HIV.

Researchers at the National Institutes of Health and their colleagues at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) in Boston report that the injectable hormone tesamorelin reduces liver fat and prevents liver fibrosis (scarring) in people living with HIV. The study was conducted by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and the National Cancer Institute, both parts of NIH. The findings were published online today in The Lancet HIV.

The fight against liver disease could be helped by the discovery of cells that cause liver scarring.

New results from a prospective, 12-month study indicate that the severity of psoriasis is associated with the severity of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). The study findings were presented today at the 28th EADV Congress in Madrid, Spain.

A research team at the University of Rochester Wilmot Cancer Institute reports that combining a type of radiation therapy with immunotherapy not only cures pancreatic cancer in mice, but appears to reprogram the immune system to create an 'immune memory' in the same way that a vaccine keeps the flu away. The result is that the combination treatment also destroyed pancreatic cells that had spread to the liver, a common site for metastatic disease.

When it comes to repairing injured tissue, specialized cells in the body known as fibroblasts are called into action. Fibroblasts give rise to healing cells called myofibroblasts, which generally is good in the short term -- but bad when myofibroblast activation gets out of hand. Now, Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University researchers show how fibroblast activation and myofibroblast formation occurs, providing clues for how to target fibrosis -- which impacts several chronic diseases.