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	Podcast:		UC Science Today
	Episode:		Researchers convert cirrhosis-causing cells to healthy cells in the lab
	Category:		Science & Medicine
	Duration:		00:01:01
	Publish Date:		2016-07-02 19:00:00
	Description:		Currently, the best known cure for liver cirrhosis is an organ transplant. But in a mouse model, University of California, San Francisco researchers have found a way to transform the diseased cells that drive this progressive scarring into healthy cells. Postdoctoral scholar Milad Rezvani says a big question is whether this technique will prove to be clinically relevant and safe to treat damaged livers in humans. "Liver cirrhosis is still a huge public health burden. Right now we have shown that we can turn this one cirrhosis causing cell type into normal liver cells that function. So the obvious question after a successful mouse in vivo study is, can we do this in human patients?" The technique used a virus to shuttle the desirable genes into diseased cells, and also proved successful on plates of cirrhosis-causing human cells. Rezvani’s team is now working to refine this virus so it only targets the liver and avoids infecting other cells in the body.
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