Georg Damm

SMART-NAFLD : A Systems Medicine Approach to Early Detection and Prevention of Hepatocellular Carcinoma in Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease

The massive increase in obesity is leading to an alarming rise in non-alcoholic liver disease (NAFLD). This development will lead to a dramatic increase in liver diseases such as hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). A particular challenge is that NAFLD-associated HCCs, for reasons still unknown, not only occur in association with advanced liver fibrosis/cirrhosis, ...

Forschungsnetzwerk zur Früherkennung und Prävention- LiSyM-Krebs

Ein Netzwerk von Klinikern, Wissenschaftlern und Datenmanagern hat sich zur Aufgabe gemacht, Methoden zu entwickeln, um Patienten mit einem hohen Risiko für ein Leberkarzinom frühzeitig, in Vorstadien der Tumorentwicklung, identifizieren zu können. Gemeinsam bilden sie das „Systemmedizinische Forschungsnetzwerk zur Früherkennung und Prävention von Leberkrebs“, LiSym-Krebs, das vom Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung ...

DEEP-HCC - Detailed Analysis of the Spatial Organization of the Development of Hepatocellular Carcinoma

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.

This generic project is intended to be a forum for all LiSyM partner and external stakeholders interested in participating in the BMBF initiative LiSyM-Krebs.

To investigate the underlying molecular principles of metabolic and morphogenic zonation of the human liver lobule, we generated an integrated epigenetic map across three zones (pericentral, intermediate and periportal) by methylation and transcriptomic analysis of hepatocytes captured by laser micro-dissection. We observe a deep link between epigenetic zonation of human liver and a zonated expression of metabolic and morphogenic pathways: Key transcriptionally zonated enzymes in xenobiotic and ...

Liver macrophages (LMs) play a central role in acute and chronic liver pathologies. In our study, we sought to gain further insight into the role of LMs in different liver pathologies and into their characteristics after isolation from liver tissue. Here we will characterize LMs in human liver tissue sections using immunohistochemistry and bioinformatic image analysis. We investigate liver tissues characterized by antiinflammatory LMs which show a homogeneous distribution and increased cell numbers ...

In this study, we investigated human LMs in tissue sections as well as isolated from human liver tissues which were characterized both in suspension and in adherent cultures to find out whether the inflammatory state of primary human LMs corresponds to patients and disease characteristics and whather it is possible to maintain the macrophage pattern in suspension as well as in adherent cultures with just a few limitations. (CCA: cholangiocarcinoma, CRLM: colorectal liver metastasis, FNH: focal ...

LMs were characterized in human liver tissue sections using immunohistochemistry and bioinformatic image analysis. Isolated cells were characterized in suspension using FACS analyses and in culture using

DNA-methylation at binding sites of uniformly expressed transcription factors in human hepatocytes ; hepatic zone: intermediate (IZ)