Holger Willenbring Receives Discovery Stage Research Projects Award from CIRM

Holger Willenbring, MD, PhD is the receipient of a Discovery Stage Research Project award from the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM). The project "Preclinical development of AAV vector-mediated in vivo hepatic reprogramming of myofibroblasts as a therapy for liver fibrosis" was approved for $1.6M in funding through the Discovery Quest Awards Program, which promotes the discovery of promising new stem cell-based technologies that could be translated to enable broad use and, ultimately, improve patient care.

Dr. Willenbring's project aims to develop a therapy for liver fibrosis based on converting myofibroblasts, the cells that make the scars that are characteristic for the fibrotic liver and contribute to its functional impairment, into hepatocytes, the cells that provide most of the liver’s functions. To achieve clinical translation, his laboratory is using adenoassociated viral (AAV) vectors, which proved to be safe and effective in clinical trials of liver-directed gene therapy.