Dr Anthony George
Predicting Progression in PSC
Awarded to Dr Anthony George, University of Oxford
The total grant awarded is £52,500
Duration of award: 2 years
Research title: Predicting Progression in PSC
Summary
PSC Support has awarded £52,500 to Dr Anthony George to uncover the processes that drive inflammation and damage in PSC.
The team will use state of the art technologies to analyse liver biopsy samples from people with PSC, giving us unprecedented insights into how the disease develops and progresses.
One of the most difficult aspects of living with PSC is the uncertainty associated with its unpredictable nature. Dr George’s work could lead to the development of tools to accurately predict who will develop more advanced disease and allow doctors to tailor care to individuals’ needs.
Background
A new diagnosis of PSC can be a frightening prospect, made worse by the uncertainty of how the disease will progress over time and the fact that there are no effective treatments for PSC.
One of the most difficult emotional aspects of dealing with PSC for patients is not knowing how the disease may progress. Many people can remain relatively stable with few symptoms, but sadly for some, the disease can rapidly progress to serious symptoms that may ultimately lead to liver failure. What’s more, when someone is diagnosed with PSC, doctors do not have the tools to tell them what damage their PSC will cause or how quickly. People with PSC say that not knowing how serious it will get or when is like living under a ‘ticking time bomb’.
We do not fully understand the mechanisms that cause inflammation and scarring in the liver. Dr George will use cutting-edge research technologies that have never previously been applied to PSC to seek out markers of disease severity, potential targets for future drugs and the processes involved in how PSC develops.
What will Dr George do?
Dr George will look at the genetic make-up of individual clusters of cells at a microscopic level in liver biopsy samples from people with PSC and compare them to those of people with other liver diseases.
To do this, Dr George’s team will use a new technology called spatial transcriptomics to identify different types of cells and map out where they are. The location of the cells helps us to understand their function, and ultimately unlock information about how PSC develops and progresses at the cellular level.
Why is this study important?
One of the most difficult aspects of living with PSC is the uncertainty associated with its unpredictable nature. We simply don’t have the tools today to accurately predict who will get worse and how quickly, nor do we have an effective treatment to control the disease.
This study aims to use state of the art research technologies that have never previously been applied to PSC to seek out biological markers of disease severity and improve our understanding of how PSC forms and causes disease. Uncovering these pathways will provide new targets for drugs that can interrupt these processes - and help us predict who will develop more advanced disease, allowing doctors to personalise care to individual patients.
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