Fibrolamellar hepatocellular carcinoma (FL-HCC) is a rare form of liver cancer that primarily affects young people. The same therapies used for conventional HCC are typically used for FL-HCC but unfortunately aren’t as effective and it’s not known why. Therefore, Dr. de Oliveira plans to better characterize the differences between HCC and FL-HCC. To do so, she’s developing a zebrafish model of FL-HCC, which she will compare to an HCC model and use to observe how different immune cells interact with liver cancer cells in both forms of the disease. This may provide insights about how to target these cells in therapies for FL-HCC.
Rare disease patients and their families deserve investigation into new treatments. The financial support of organizations such as the Cancer Research Institute and Fibrolamellar Cancer Foundation is vital to support this kind of work.
Projects and Grants
The role of the innate immune system in hepatocarcinogenesis- FHL2 as a putative molecular target
University of Wisconsin-Madison | Childhood Cancer, Liver Cancer | 2017 | Anna Huttenlocher, M.D.
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