Tissue fibrosis (scarring) accounts for 45% of all deaths in the developed world with substantial inter-individual variability in the risk of fibrosis progression.

We are working on a world-first approach to discover the genetic and epigenetic determinants of fibrosis risk.

Understanding variations in disease outcomes such as difference in tissue scarring, holds the promise of developing tailored and personalised management algorithms and to discover new ways for treating fibrosis.

Our group leads an international liver fibrosis genetics consortium that includes several thousand patients from over than 30 academic centers and 10 countries including Australia, Spain, Germany, Italy, the UK, Hong Kong, Egypt, and others.

The team is attempting to develop diagnostic tests incorporating genetic discoveries with clinical variables to non-invasively predict liver fibrosis severity.

The consortium has already designed an easy-to-use clinical tool which can predict the risk of fibrosis progression in patients suffering from liver disease called Fibrogene and an online calculator is available.