Abstract

Chronic liver diseases (CLD) and their end-stages, cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), are leading causes of morbidity and mortality worldwide with enormous socio-economic costs. Patients with liver cirrhosis are at high risk of deadly hepatic failure and over 80% of HCC develop on a cirrhotic background. HCC ranks as the 5th most common cancer and with >600,000 deaths per annum it constitutes a major global health problem. The main etiologies of CLD are chronic HCV and HBV infections, alcohol abuse and nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) as a result of the metabolic syndrome taking epidemic proportions. Liver transplantation is currently the only available therapy for terminal liver failure. It is well recognized that the cytokine TGF-Beta plays a pivotal role in the sequence of events leading to end-stage CLD, but the complexity of the underlying aberrant responses in the cells and the organ that lead to the drastic changes seen in CLD and HCC is poorly understood. A broad spectrum of scientific and technological capacities is needed to accomplish the goal of discovering drugs and treatment modalities for CLD and HCC.As a result, there is a lack – in academia and industry alike - of internationally oriented researchers and research leaders, capable of seamless and bi-directional transfer of goal-oriented scientific knowledge and technologies between the basic, translational and clinical research and industrial capacities; a conditio sine qua non for effectively and efficiently combating CLD and HCC and alleviate its medical and socio-economic burdens. Consequently, the ITN formulated the mission to provide a multidisciplinary and intersectorial Research Training Programme for talented young researchers, so as to prepare them for leading roles in CLD research and drug discovery in European industry and academia.