The Liver Group Charity Jobs

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The Liver Group Charity is a medical research charity, currently supporting the development of the Bioartificial Liver Machine to treat patients who have severe liver failure. The Charity’s overall objectives are (I) the relief of patients suffering from diseases of the liver and (II) the promotion of research into the causes and treatment of diseases of the liver. As part of that raison d’être we train tomorrow’s scientists, via PhD studentships, an important investment in the future of medical research in the UK. Liver disease is increasing, the only major disease to do so in the UK; a recent NHS report showed that almost 12,000 patients a year in England alone die of liver failure, and this number rises to millions in a global context. Whilst a liver transplant is an effective way of managing conditions that cause liver failure, 1 in every 3 people on the transplant list in the UK die before they get a new liver; given that 80% of those with acute liver failure will die without a liver transplant, there really is a huge unmet medical need. However unlike most other organs in the body, the liver can repair and re-grow itself, given time, so there is an opportunity to provide temporary liver support. The Bioartificial Liver will “buy time” for a sick liver to repair itself in patients with acute liver failure, so that a patient could leave hospital without the lifelong immunosuppressive drug treatment necessary after a transplant. Even in patients with chronic liver disease, who will inevitably need a whole new liver eventually, the Bioartificial Liver will buy time until a new liver is available. Following the successful testing of the Bioartificial Liver Machine in a large scale model in 2011, the researchers we support are now creating a clinically-ready machine so that they can apply for regulatory approval and subsequently undertake the first-in-man trials. We are helping to fund the refinements required to bring this to a real therapeutic option. As such we are supporting research into Cryopreservation, so the Bioartificial Liver Machine will be available ‘off the shelf’’, and also a novel sepsis treatment, that, if successful, will benefit not only patients with liver failure, but also any patient suffering from septicaemia - a worldwide problem.

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