mitoFOIE GRAS: Non-invasive Profiling of Mitochondrial Function in Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease

Overview

Project Summary

Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease (NAFLD), including its more pathologic consequence, non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), is believed to be the most common chronic liver disease worldwide, affecting between 6 to 37% of the population. NAFLD is a so called ‘silent killer’, as clinical symptoms only surface at late stages of the disease, when it is no longer treatable: untreated, NAFLD/NASH can lead to cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma, culminating in liver failure. Currently the best method of diagnosing and staging the disease is liver biopsy, a costly, invasive and somewhat risky procedure, not to mention unfit for routine assessment. Besides, no therapeutic consensus exists for NAFLD/NASH treatment. mtFOIE GRAS (Foie Gras being French for "fat liver") proposes to address the pressing need for non-invasive, accurate, rapid assessment of NAFLD/NASH stages, before and after intervention, through the development of biomarkers

Main Goals

This project envisions a training-through-work plan that brings together an intersectoral, multidisciplinary team of researchers and technicians experts in their fields, from basic to translational research, clinical practice, technology commercialization and public advocacy. mtFOIE GRAS aims at bringing together experts from industry and academia, from cross-sectorial research areas having complementary background, with the long-term goal of value creation chain to address the unmet medical need of more informative NAFLD assessment.

Project Details