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Liver Damage Mechanisms/Evolution into
Advanced Cirrhosis and Transplant
Coordinator: Rafael Bañares Cañizares
In 2016 the scientific work done in programme 1 was implemented in the framework of the CIBEREHD’s
strategic orientation in its different spheres.
First of all, from the standpoint of the internationalisation of its research work, cooperation with groups from other countries has been consolidated in the setting of different multicentre studies in the field of liver transplantation (tolerance of the implant after transplantation), of acutely decompensated liver disease (new devices for artificial liver support) as well as in international networks of immune-mediated liver diseases, amongst others. In the same approach of recruiting research resources, all the groups in the programme have been able to maintain their own lines for project financing and recruiting human resources in competitive calls, which has meant that the critical research mass of the programme could be maintained. Likewise, the groups in the programme have transferred a good deal of their research work to the technology sector, stressing for example the participation in programmes for developing nanomedicines based on peptides of the major histocompatibility complex; considerable progress has also been made in the transfer of inventions such as the development of microfluidic chambers enabling simulating the physiological setting of the human liver endothelium exploring the paracrine relations between the different cell types involved.
From the standpoint of the necessary development of cooperative research different strategic actions financed by the CIBER itself have been carried out with the intention of making the groups’ joint activity more dynamic, especially that of the basic groups, whose tradition in this respect usually has a lower profile. In this respect they have proceeded to develop a mouse model with humanised liver, whose application to the research lines of different groups in the programme has great potential scope.
A cooperative research line is also being developed covered by another strategic action intended to determine the role of exosomes in a wide range of experimental models of acute and chronic liver diseases.
One important aspect now characteristic of the programme is physiopathological research from the
dual, clinical and laboratory angle. Progress has thus been made in knowledge of the close relationship between the intestinal barrier and its regulation with inflammatory and immune-mediated mechanisms of advanced liver disease.
From the viewpoint of Clinical research cooperative projects have been maintained and reinforced, including progress in the applicability of non-invasive diagnostic strategies in chronic liver disease, consolidation of the role of statins in treatment of advanced liver disease or extension of knowledge of
the action mechanisms of beta blocker medications in early stages of the disease. The overall results of the programme have been noteworthy from the standpoint of scientific production with a large number of publications in the first decile of the speciality and different clinical practice guides being drafted as a final expression of the capacity for translation of the wide range of research done by the programme to the patient.
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