The Liver Care Center at Cincinnati Children’s is building on its reputation for innovation with the addition of a multidisciplinary center for children with autoimmune liver disease and a new lab with a focus on organoid transplantation.

Focusing resources on treatment for rare liver diseases

Cincinnati Children’s established the Center for Autoimmune Liver Disease in 2016 to help patients with autoimmune hepatitis (AIH) and primary sclerosing cholangitis (PSC).

These rare diseases are common diagnoses among adolescents with chronic liver disease, but do not receive the same amount of research and attention as other liver conditions affecting children, such as biliary atresia and neonatal cholestasis. Under the direction of pediatric gastroenterologist Alexander Miethke, MD, the center will focus on improving current treatment strategies, promoting clinical and translational research at Cincinnati Children’s and beyond, and educating other specialists about how to diagnose and treat these diseases most effectively.

Cincinnati Children’s is an international referral center for patients with autoimmune liver disease. The clinical team currently follows about 170 patients with AIH and/or PSC, and provides consultation services including review of liver biopsies for specialists from throughout the U.S. and as far away as the Middle East.

At the forefront of liver research

A new stem cell biologist at Cincinnati Children’s is pursuing the holy grail of engineering human livers using stem cells. Takanori Takebe, MD, joined the faculty in 2016. His research involves coaxing “induced” pluripotent stem (iPS) cells into forming liver cell precursors, then culturing them as a mixture with other embryonic cells to create three-dimensional small liver organoids, also known as “liver buds.”

These liver buds perform many functions of the liver; when transplanted into mice, they have gone on to make liver-specific enzymes and metabolize drugs. The potential clinical applications of the technology are broad and include drug screening, personalized treatment, and transplant technologies. In one example, Takebe hopes that if he can infuse many thousands of liver buds into a failing liver, he might be able to restore enough of its function to make a transplant unnecessary.

Takebe has established a translational research program for tissue engineering at Cincinnati Children’s, using the liver bud technology as a stepping stone. He will be working with developmental biologists and hepatologists at Cincinnati Children’s to use liver buds to study liver diseases and screen for new treatments, and create the next generation of liver bud technology.