Evaluating Therapeutics for Liver Disease with Robust Internal Control

SLU ID 20-019 | Novel Human Model to Test Therapeutics and Diagnostics

Background

Worldwide, liver disease accounts for almost 2 million deaths each year. Roughly half of these deaths are related to complications of cirrhosis while the other half are related to viral hepatitis and hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) despite the advances in the treatment of hepatitis C. There has been a slow advance in the treatment of other liver diseases like nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) and nonalcoholic steato-hepatitis (NASH). Moreover, there are only few molecular targeted therapies available for the treatment of HCC, and the available agents used provide a median survival benefit of only about 3 months.

Liver transplant continues to be the ultimate treatment for a majority chronic liver disease. However, there is a major shortage in the deceased liver donor pool. Unfortunately, there is a discard rate of 10% for deceased liver donors due to pre-existing liver disease in donors that prohibit the use of these organs in needy recipients.

A good human pre-clinical model that can evaluate a variety of therapeutics with a robust internal control is lacking. The creation of such model is of paramount importance.

Overview

Researchers at Saint Louis University (SLU) have developed a reliable pre-clinical human model that allows for rapid translatability and applicability in humans. The model simulates in vivo conditions and allows multiple morphological, histological, serum, bile and gene expression testing. This results in rigorously controlled, highly valuable data.

Benefits

The potential benefits of this technology include:

• Minimizing the cost of developing treatments for liver disease.

• Increasing the quality of pre-clinical testing.

Applications

Potential applications of this technology include:

• Testing novel therapeutic agents.

• Serving as a platform for preclinical trials of various therapeutic agents that affect the human liver.

• Evaluating liver function tests and other serological tests.

• Assessing morphology.

• Generating gene expression data.

• Studying the effect of vascular occlusions, thrombosis, etc.

• Studying liver regeneration and in vivo organ development.

• Functioning as a teaching tool in academic settings.

Opportunity

Saint Louis University is seeking partners to further develop and commercialize this technology.