First LiSyM PostDoc and PhD student retreat

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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One of the tasks of the healthy liver is to store fat. Yet, at some stage, too much fat makes the liver sick. One critical time point occurs when a healthy fatty liver becomes inflamed and progresses to steatohepatitis, or NASH.
LiSyM-Pillar I will identify what events lead to this transition. Does it occur in all parts of the liver? Which molecules indicate that it is taking place? Can the degeneration be stopped or undone - and if so, how?

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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