INTErPRET-NAFLD

Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is the commonest cause of chronic liver disease, affecting 1 in 4 people worldwide. However, not everyone with a fatty liver goes on to have serious liver problems. In fact, only about 20% of people with a fatty liver progress to a more severe progressive form that can lead to liver cirrhosis (where healthy cells are replaced by scar tissue), liver cancer and premature death. Currently, we have no way of telling which people with NAFLD might develop the severe form or progress to cirrhosis, and there are no medicines that are ‘on the market’ to treat this condition. We have already established an Innovate-UK funded resource called SteatoSITE, a “data commons” that pulls together information related to liver damage, genetics, and health data from a large group of NAFLD cases from across Scotland. In this new project, we will use an innovative technique that provides extremely detailed images of the SteatoSITE liver samples. We will then use powerful computing methods to analyse all of the data in SteatoSITE to develop a new and immediately usable test for accurately predicting which NAFLD patients are at greatest risk. This test can be immediately applied, using the same measurements, in patients and in research settings.