Tuesday 22.10.2024

Excited to share the latest research published in EMBO Molecular Medicine! Mašek and Andersson labs in collaboration with Björkström, Gregor and Dobeš labs explored the specific, pericellular fibrosis in Alagille syndrome (ALGS).

What determines how much scar tissue one develops in the liver when suffering from liver disease (so-called fibrosis)?” A little fibrosis is normal and helps repair after injury, but often the fibrosis escalates, leading to liver failure. To answer this, researchers from Faculty of Science, Charles University, Jan Mašek, Ph.D. and colleagues, and Karolinska Institute studied a genetic disease called Alagille syndrome, which is characterized by surprisingly mild liver fibrosis despite severe liver disease (pericellular fibrosis instead of bridging).

Dr. Jan Mašek attempt to answer this question started at the Karolinska Institute during his postdoc in the laboratory of Dr. Emma R. Andersson and reached completion after establishing his laboratory at Charles University. Invaluable was the collaboration with immulogists from Prof. Niklas Björkström at Karolinska Institute, and Dr. Jan Dobes’ lab from Charles University, and hepaotlogists from Dr. Martin Gregor’s lab from the Institute of Molecular Genetics in Prague.