The University of Southern California Center for Liver Diseases (USC-CLD) has the goal of fostering and facilitating interdisciplinary research in digestive diseases. These themes include: 1) Membrane and Intracellular Transport; 2) Viral hepatitis and liver cancer, 3) Hepatotoxicity, inflammation and fibrosis, and 4) Hepatic metabolism. To support this research base, four core facilities are planned: 1) Administrative Core, to include grant management, advisory committee, enrichment program of visitors and minisabbaticals; 2) Molecular Biology Core, to provide a wide variety of services for new or experienced investigators and also to provide an educational resource; 3) a Cell Culture Core to provide cultured rat and mouse nonparenchymal cells, hepatocytes and various cell lines and to make available human hepatocytes and zone-enriched cells; 4) a Sub-cellular Organelle Core to provide domaine-enriched liver plasma membranes, subcellular organelles such as mitochondria and microsomes, and more refined fractionation analyses including pulse-chase. In addition, four pilot and feasibility projects are included in diverse areas such as 1) identification of the genetic defect in epimerase- deficient galactosemia; 2) use of HBV to target genes to the liver; 3) the role of protein phosphatases (and inhibitors) in microtubular dependent vesicle transport and motor protein phosphorylation, and 4) the use of myocytes over-expressing cytokine antagonist genes as a model of gene therapy. The USC-CLD is dedicated to technology transfer from the bench to the bedside in understanding, preventing and treating liver diseases and other digestive diseases.
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