Healing from within – Establishing a code to create therapeutic human hepatocytes in situ

• Applicant: Dr. Milad Rezvani
• Subject Area: Gastroenterology
• Term: since 2020
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 437638965

The development of regenerative therapies for chronic liver injuries is hindered by limited understanding of genetic and microenvironmental factors driving human hepatocyte function, regeneration and injury-specific resilience. I will address this unmet need and test the hypothesis that such factors can be defined in faithful settings. Therefore, I will identify transcription factors and zonal signals that confer mature hepatocyte function via an in vivo competitive gene selection screen. This will be followed by establishing genes that encode for injury-specific resilience and proliferation without transformation. Ultimately, I will apply these information on maturity and injury-specific fitness to in vivo hepatic reprogramming of myofibroblasts to induce therapeutic hepatocytes and establish a regenerative liver therapy in situ.

• DFG Programme: Independent Junior Research Groups