Our Research

The Chen Lab works in the highly cross-disciplinary field of liver fibrosis. Fibrosis is the final common pathway for all etiologies of chronic liver disease. Activation of hepatic stellate cells (HSCs) is the key step in liver fibrogenesis. We aim to identify novel mechanisms that inactivate HSCs as a strategy to treat patients with fibrosis. We have identified several targets, and validated their efficacy using conditional knockout mice in multiple models of liver fibrosis, including those that reproduce nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH). We are particularly interested in developing new antifibrotic therapies. We have also developed gene signature scores to identify patients with advanced fibrosis, and are interested in validating these prediction scores in patients with chronic liver disease.

We are excited to share that we received 2 R01 awards in 2023! One R01 award focuses on delineating molecular mechanisms related to ceramide signaling and fibrosis regression and validation of our gene signature scores. The second R01 award focuses on developing novel inhibitors of acid ceramidase.