The Core Facility provides Liver Center investigators with biostatistical consultation, data analysis, interpretation, and assistance in writing up statistical methods and results; serum samples, peripheral blood mononuclear cells and liver specimens from patients with liver disease and limited clinical data from these patients. Investigation of liver disease transcends many disciplines from adult hepatology to pediatrics, from surgery to radiology to pathology, from basic immunology to clinical virology to epidemiology. Liver Center investigators have been studying questions related not only to liver transplantation and antiviral therapy but also to biliary disease, variceal bleeding, cost effectiveness and quality of life. The Core has been able to provide support for a broad range of investigations into hepatobiliary diseases and normal hepatic metabolism, and to serve as a regional and national resource for clinical research in viral hepatitis and transplant. Finally, the Core has been instrumental in bringing together a group of investigators focused on liver cancer, who now have applied for expanded funding in this area, through the NCI SPORE mechanism. The Core provides comprehensive assistance to investigators at all stages of study development and execution, including assistance with study design, database construction, statistical analysis, and manuscript writing. By removing the inertial barriers to entering clinical research, it plays a major role in the productivity and career development of UCSF trainees and junior faculty while also assisting more senior investigators with established research programs. The extensive collection of serum and tissue samples has been made available to, and utilized extensively by, Liver Center members and, on a limited basis, by non-Center investigators at other academic institutions. The diversity and number of specimens available through the Core provides a scarce and unique human resource for those engaged in clinical and translational research.
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