In the U.S., liver disease claims the lives of at least 52,000 people annually. Globally, statistics suggest that 1.5 billion individuals are affected by liver disease. However, ARLD, or alcohol-related liver disease, hasn’t garnered traction within the scientific community, until now.
A study undertaken by a team at Texas A&M University has developed a novel therapy that could transform how ARLD is treated.
Doctor Jyothi Menon, the lead researcher of this study, explains that the rising cases of liver diseases increase the risk of potentially life-threatening complications like cancer developing from these liver diseases. She adds that this concern drove her and the team to search for ways to halt the progression of liver diseases, and the technology that they have developed could provide that needed solution.
The team developed nanoparticles designed to identify damaged liver cells and attach to them so that those cells don’t fuel disease progression.
Under normal circumstances the liver can heal itself and regenerate, even when about three quarters of that liver has sustained damage. However, when a liver disease becomes chronic and injury to the liver is repetitive, the liver unintentionally starts harming itself. This is because Kupffer cells, the immune cells that usually shield the liver from harmful substances and infections, start generating proteins that trigger other liver cells to become inflamed.
This increasing level of inflammation results in the formation of scar tissue, a process referred to as fibrosis. Organ dysfunction results, and this can even trigger liver cancer to develop.
The nanoparticles developed by Menon’s team are aimed at halting this process. The particles identify and attach themselves to a specific protein that only occurs on Kupffer cells. The nanoparticles trigger the immune cells (Kupffer cells) to switch from promoting inflammation to actually fighting it. As these nanoparticles degrade, they serve another beneficial effect of releasing anti-inflammation therapy to the cells onto which they had been attached, which helps these cells to recover and function like other healthy liver cells.
Menon’s approach is different from existing treatments for liver diseases because the nanoparticles are designed to halt fibrosis before it takes root while other medications are designed to treat scarring in the liver after the fact.
The research team’s work is groundbreaking and the success of their approach could offer a template that can be used in the treatment of other organs within the body. As this approach is developed further and makes its way through the preclinical and clinical trial process, other enterprises like Soligenix Inc. (NASDAQ: SNGX) are also making progress in their bid to develop the next class of therapies indicated for inflammation. Inflammation plays a key role in driving many diseases, so the successful treatment of this condition could have a big impact on health care.
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