Personalized molecular signatures for modulating progression of metabolic liver disease (NAFLD) to hepatocellular carcinoma
Host: UNIVERZA V LJUBLANI (Slovenia)
PhD awarding institution: UNIVERZA V LJUBLANI (Slovenia)
Lead Supervisor: D Rozman
Objectives: NAFLD currently suffers from the absence of treatment strategies which led to dramatic rise of liver cancer (HCC). Without treatment, HCC is fatal, with a 5-year survival of only five percent. To bridge this gap, the ESR 5 project will: 1) Integrate the public available datasets of well-defined NAFLD and HCC patient cohorts to propose novel molecular signatures of progressive NAFLD; 2) Evaluate in this patients the genetic variation to drug and metabolic stress response; 3) Experimentally validate and refine signatures (focused on cholesterol-linked transcription factors) in histologically staged liver disease; 4) Construct personalized models of liver disease management. The proposed targets will be integrated and validated within the personalized SteatoNet models, which will be used to identify a wider scope of NAFLD targets and identify patients at risk for adverse drug effects.