Basic Science Seminar: Modeling of human liver
The seminar aims to foster interaction between leaders-in-the-field and the audience. It contains multiple short duo-lectures, with first a ten-minute overview of the topic, followed by a more in-depth ten-minute presentation by a talented fellow, and finally an extensive Q&A with the audience.
Learning Objectives
- Understand the genetic and epigenetic programs governing hepatic cell differentiation and liver morphogenesis during development
- Translate the in vitro modelling to the disease context and clinical settings
- Comprehend the relevance of liver immunity modeling from ontogeny to disease
- Explore novel aspects of modeling liver injury
Organisers
Fréderic Lemaigre
Fréderic Lemaigre, a medical graduate of UCLouvain (Belgium) in 1986, researches tissue-specific gene regulation. he discovered Onecut transcription factors, essential for liver and pancreas development. Lemaigre now leads a research group at the de Duve Institute, also serving as a Professor of molecular biology at UCLouvain Faculty of Medicine in Brussels.
Fotios Sampaziotis
Fotios Sampaziotis is a UKRI Future Leaders Fellow and group leader at the University of Cambridge, also serving as an honorary consultant hepatologist at Addenbrooke’s Hospital. He earned his medical degree from the University of Athens and completed his hepatology training in Cambridge. His research focuses on combining bioengineering, cell therapies, and ex-vivo human organ perfusion to advance regenerative medicine, earning him multiple international awards.
Silvia Affò s liver disease research journey began in her PhD at the University of Barcelona, focusing on hepatic inflammation and fibrosis. After completing her PhD in 2014, she studied cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAFs) in liver tumours in the US, earning recognition and awards. In 2021, she returned to Barcelona as a Junior Researcher, investigating CAFs in cholangiocarcinoma with multiple grants, including the prestigious ERC Starting grant, and now leads her own research group.
Session Summaries
This session will address and discuss current questions and challenges that remain open regarding genetic and epigenetic mechanisms of hepatic cell differentiation on and liver growth.
This session will provide an overview on the changes occurring to endothelial-, immune- and epithelial- cells in the context of chronic liver injury and cancer.
This session will address how the immune response is organized in liver disease and how the immune response can be investigated using human organoids.
This session will address how the response to chronic liver injury is influenced by innervation and can be investigated using organoids and single-cell analyses.
