Why this project is important for me

Over the last 7 years I have been working on severe diseases affecting the liver, particularly on non-alcoholic steatohepatitis, currently the most common liver disease worldwide. This disease has become an epidemic and affect about 10% of children and 31% of adults in the US. In obese children this number can increase up to 70%.

As we know, liver has a great auto-regenerative potential - we all know the Prometheus myth, whose liver was pecked out by an eagle during the day and it regenerated during the night.

However, during a chronic injury this regenerative ability of the liver is compromised. In this scenario, the normal tissue gets replaced by scarring tissue (liver fibrosis), with consequent lost of normal liver function and structure.

Liver fibrosis is strongly associated with the development of liver cancer, the third most frequent type of cancer in the world. Despite great effort, there is not approved therapy for liver fibrosis.

 

This project uses an innovative approach by exposing liver cells that cause liver fibrosis to regenerative small vesicles released by stem cells. These vesicles are extremely effective messengers that target bad cells and communicate beneficial messages. Stem cells are obtained from skin cells of a patient non-invasively and vesicles are isolated from stem cells just by culturing them in vitro.

I believe this is an exciting project that, if funded, will open a completely new field for regenerative medicine and will provide new tools for novel and personalized therapeutic strategies for various diseases.

Please, do not hesitate to contact me if you have any question!