Towards a better understanding of obesity-related liver disease

Antonio Vidal

Príncipe Felipe Research Center Foundation (CIPF), Valencia, Spain

The current obesity pandemic has led to an increase in the prevalence of liver diseases, such as fatty liver disease associated with metabolic dysfunction, which is characterised by the accumulation of fats, particularly triglycerides, in the liver and can progress to hepatocellular carcinoma.

However, the progression from obesity to liver disease does not occur in all people who accumulate fat in the liver, nor does it follow the same pattern in all those who eventually develop it. The specific mechanisms of liver inflammation and fibrosis are not yet well understood. A better understanding of these mechanisms and the factors that influence them would open the door, on the one hand, to finding biomarkers to identify individuals at high risk of developing liver disease, and on the other hand. to designing new therapeutic intervention strategies.

In this project, the researchers are working on the hypothesis that liver cells are damaged by excessive or abnormal triglyceride accumulation. This causes the body’s immune cells to become activated and infiltrate the liver, causing inflammation that eventually leads to liver failure.

Using the latest technological advances, this project aims to identify biomarkers for early stratification to identify patients at risk of developing or progressing to more severe stages of the disease, before liver function deteriorates. New therapeutic strategies to prevent and ameliorate hepatic metabolic problems will also be explored.

• Manuel Romero Gómez, Centro de Investigación Biomédica en Red (CIBER), Madrid, Spain

Mechanisms of progression and therapeutic approaches to prevent/reverse MASLD to MASH transition

€999,959.32