International Conference on Systems Biology of Human Disease (SBHD)

Dr. Madlen Matz-Soja (University of Leipzig) investigates the importance of a control mechanism - the hedgehog signaling pathway - for fatty liver disease. She has shown that the signaling pathway directs how liver cells in NAFLD accumulate fat. Hedgehog also affects sex hormones in the liver. Therefore, Matz-Soya hopes to clarify why women and men suffer from cirrhosis and liver cancer with varying degrees of frequency.

In one in five people with NAFLD, the functioning liver cells, the hepatocytes, are replaced by connective tissue. Eventually this fibrosis becomes irreversible. In this state the liver is like a ‘scar that never heals’. Through it, the liver loses many of its vital functions.
LiSyM-Pillar II wants to know more about which factors promote fibrosis and the conditions under which fibrosis becomes irreversible How can fibrosis be diagnosed as early as possible? Researchers in the pillar are also
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Disorders of the liver show up through changes in blood tests. These blood tests indicate markers for events taking place in the liver. Usually studies of liver tissue cannot be performed: as liver samples would need to be obtained through a liver biopsy, and this procedure is not without risk, therefore these samples are usually unavailable. Complex metabolism models based on existing and new scientific data can simulate changes in the liver caused by disease. They often reveal unknown relationships
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Dr. Ahmed Ghallab (TU University, Dortmund) deals with chronic liver damage caused by toxins. In addition, he investigates processes associated with cholestasis - when bile accumulates in the bile ducts. Ghallab has been able to explain basic mechanisms of acute cholestasis, using a method for intravital two-photon microscopy, which he developed.

Major infrastructure backbone of the whole LiSyM network. It comprises the core management tasks of the program directorate and the scientific project management, as well as the central data management. The data management concept relies on FAIRDOM (http://fair-dom.org) and uses the LiSyM SEEK platform as a major hub for exchanging data, models, SOPs and other information, as well as yellow pages for the projects with its corresponding members, institutions, events, presentations and publications.
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