Jersey student leads fatty liver disease project

A Jersey student aims to better understand fatty liver disease by re-creating it in a dish.

Millie-Rose Doolan, who grew up in St Brelade, has plans to use patient-donated liver samples to develop 3D tissue cultures that are derived from stem, progenitor or induced pluripotent cells.

Fatty liver disease, also known as Metabolic Dysfunction-Associated Steatotic Liver Disease (MASLD), is a chronic liver condition that is initiated by having too much fat in the liver.

Ms Doolan, who is studying for her PhD at the University of Southampton, said: "By creating 3D organoids using patient tissue we can delve deeper into how the disease progresses and identify potential targets for treatment."

MASLD is significantly associated with central obesity, as well as conditions such as type 2 diabetes and heart and circulatory disease.

It is estimated to affect up to one in five people in the UK, but rates are increasing with rising levels of metabolic diseases such as obesity.

Ms Doolan said: "Fatty liver disease is a global health problem – latest figures suggest that up to 30% of the global adult population will be affected.

"The underlying biology of MASLD progression is unclear, and not all patients progress at the same rate or develop severe disease."

Currently, MASLD research is limited by a lack of experimental systems that replicate what happens in different humans.

Some laboratory tests can recapitulate aspects of MASLD progression but there are significant differences to what happens in the human body or a given individual.

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