A GENETIC APPROACH TO DEVELOP NOVEL MOUSE MODELS OF LIVER DISEASE

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Liver disease is now the 5th most common cause of death in the United Kingdom and about 4% of the population have evidence of ongoing liver damage. It is important to find out more about the causes of liver disease so that new treatments can be developed or to prevent liver damage occurring. This project aims to help us unravel some of the complex biology behind liver disease so that we can develop and evaluate new treatments in the future. It is clear that many factors contribute to the development of liver disease in patients and one of those factors is their genetic background. We will identify contributory genes by taking mice with random mutations in their DNA and screening for liver abnormalities. As liver disease may occur when a susceptible person is challenged with a drug, alcohol or by being overweight we will use the challenges to increase the sensitivity of our screening programme. Therefore, in addition to identifying the most important genes which cause liver disease we will also develop mouse models of liver disease which could be used for testing new treatments.