Liver disease (above) is the focus of several grants made through the Wellcome Trust's Physiological Sciences funding stream.

Hepatocyte growth factor can help to prevent liver damage and enhance liver repair and regeneration. But the molecule is too large and complex to synthesise, and so is not available to treat people with liver disease. At University College London, Professor Humphrey Hodgson has engineered simpler, smaller versions of hepatocyte growth factor that are easier to make, and has been awarded a project grant to test whether these derivatives have similar beneficial properties.

Three Research Training Fellowships have been awarded for research into liver biology and disease: David Macfarlane (University of Edinburgh) for studies of the progression of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, Thomas Bird (University of Edinburgh) for a functional analysis of the hepatic stem cell niche and Helen Matthews (Imperial College London) for work on oxidative stress in mouse models of fatty liver disease.