Liver fibrosis is frequently caused by the formation of scar tissue in the liver due to infection or injury. Deaths from this condition have increased by over 50% in the last five years and the rapid spread of Hepatitis C has produced a ‘timebomb’ of patients with advancing liver fibrosis. Furthermore, rising levels of obesity and diabetes have resulted in an increasing incidence of fatty liver, which may lead to fibrosis. The only treatment is liver transplantation and there are not enough donors available.

New drugs to treat liver fibrosis are urgently needed but their development is hampered by the difficulty of replicating the condition in the laboratory. The only models currently available involve experiments on live animals and have many problems. This project will help to develop a completely new model of liver fibrosis using donated human liver tissue obtained during cancer surgery. The researchers will then use this model to test new drugs to prevent this condition.