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Fostering innovation and collaboration in liver research
About the Liver Center
The UCSF Liver Center is one of 17 Digestive Diseases Research Core Centers (DDRCC) in the United States, whose purpose is to enhance research productivity and collaboration among scientists with similar interests.
Research Themes of the Center
The overall focus of the Center is on integrative biology of the liver. Research in the Center is organized into 3 themes: Liver Injury, Repair & Transplantation​, Hepatic Metabolism & Metabolic Derangements, Liver Cell Biology, Plasticity & Transformation​.
Core Services of the Center
The Liver Center operates four biomedical core facilities to expedite and enhance the research performed by Center members. The Cores are designed to provide liver-specific services that are unavailable elsewhere within or outside UCSF.

​Welcome to the UCSF Liver Center

The Liver Center is a consortium of more than 60 researchers who share a common interest in liver biology and disease. The goal of the Center is to integrate bench science with clinical investigation, in support of its vision to understand and cure human liver diseases.

The physicians and scientists of the Liver Center are committed to improving understanding of liver biology and alleviating suffering from liver diseases. Read More.

Jacquelyn Maher, MD

Program Director, Liver Center

Liver Center News

Registration is now open for SLAM, the Summer Liver Academy Meeting. Click this link to view the program and venue and obtain instructions for registration and abstract submission.


Congratulations to the 2023 Pilot & Feasibility Grant Awardees!

Ana Paula Arruda, PhD

The Role of Endoplasmic Reticulum Architecture in the Development of Fatty Liver Disease

Roarke Kamber, PhD

Systematic Identification of Regulators of Kupffer-mediated Cell Clearance

Michael Li, MD, MPH

Predicting Immunotherapy Toxicity and Response in Hepatocellular Carcinoma

Carolyn Sangokoya, MD, PhD

Dynamic RNA-based Spatial Organization of Cellular Iron Regulation in Liver Development and Disease


Announcement from the Multinational Liver Societies: New “Fatty” Liver Disease Nomenclature That Is Affirmative And Non-Stigmatizing

Steatotic liver disease (SLD) is the new overarching term with metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD) replacing nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD)    Read more


Featured Publications

Ha NB, Seetharaman S, Kent DS, Yao F, Shui AM, Huang CY, Walston J, Lai JC. Serum and plasma protein biomarkers associated with frailty in patients with cirrhosis. Liver Transpl. 2023 Oct 1;29(10):1089-1099. PMID: 36932707; PMCID: PMC10509322.

Natarajan B, Tabrizian P, Hoteit M, Frenette C, Parikh N, Ghaziani T, Dhanasekaran R, Guy J, Shui A, Florman S, Yao FY, Mehta N. Downstaging hepatocellular carcinoma before liver transplantation: A multicenter analysis of the "all-comers" protocol in the Multicenter Evaluation of Reduction in Tumor Size before Liver Transplantation (MERITS-LT) consortium. Am J Transplant. 2023 Nov;23(11):1771-1780. doi: 10.1016/j.ajt.2023.07.021. Epub 2023 Jul 31. PMID: 37532179

Meyers NL, Ashuach T, Lyons DE, Khalid MM, Simoneau CR, Erickson AL, Bouhaddou M, Nguyen TT, Kumar GR, Taha TY, Natarajan V, Baron JL, Neff N, Zanini F, Mahmoudi T, Quake SR, Krogan NJ, Cooper S, McDevitt TC, Yosef N, Ott M. Hepatitis C virus infects and perturbs liver stem cells. mBio. 2023 Nov 8:e0131823. doi: 10.1128/mbio.01318-23. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 37938000.

Cullaro G, Ge J, Lee BP, Lai JC, Wadhwani SI. Association between neighborhood-based material deprivation and liver transplant waitlist registrants demographics and mortality. Clin Transplant. 2023 Nov 8:e15189. doi: 10.1111/ctr.15189. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 37937349

Ge J, Sun S, Owens J, Galvez V, Gologorskaya O, Lai JC, Pletcher MJ, Lai K. Development of a Liver Disease-Specific Large Language Model Chat Interface using Retrieval Augmented Generation. medRxiv [Preprint]. 2023 Nov 10:2023.11.10.23298364. doi: 10.1101/2023.11.10.23298364. PMID: 37986764; PMCID: PMC10659484.

For a complete list of liver-related member publications updated monthly, click here