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Karin Hedin

PhD student

I work as a P.h.D student at the Department of Health, Medicine and Caring sciences

Presentation

Metabolic alterations in liver disease

The liver is the central hub in human metabolism, critical to numerous physiological processes. Yet, there are still many knowledge gaps present when it comes to the intricate puzzle concerning human liver metabolism and specifically how this is altered during disease conditions.

Metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD) is the most common chronic liver condition worldwide, with approximately 30 percent of the global population being afflicted. Being a multisystemic condition, MASLD has been associated with increased risks for cardiovascular disease (CD) and metabolic comorbidities. Moreover, a small yet substantial subgroup of patients will proceed to develop hepatic fibrosis which is associated with elevated risks for liver-related complications.

The mechanisms involved in fibrotic development are largely elusive and therefore predicting which patients are likely to develop progressive MASLD (known as metabolic dysfunction associated steatohepatitis (MASH)) remains a challenge for health care workers around the world. My research concerns metabolic alterations in patients with MASLD, with the hopes of identifying potential biomarkers associated with hepatic fibrosis development, which could help define clinical phenotypes that could predict which patients are likely to become severely ill with MASLD.

Publications

2024

Nina Grankvist, Cecilia Jönsson, Karin Hedin, Nicolas Sundqvist, Per A Sandström, Bergthor Björnsson, Arjana Begzati, Evgeniya Mickols, Per Artursson, Mohit Jain, Gunnar Cedersund, Roland Nilsson (2024) Global 13C tracing and metabolic flux analysis of intact human liver tissue ex vivo Nature Metabolism, Vol. 6, p. 1963-1975 (Article in journal) Continue to DOI