LiverX program

The LiverX Project: Systems Biology of Hepatic Insulin Resistance

Obesity, type 2 diabetes and its associated comorbidities such as heart disease and atherosclerosis are among the most prevalent and challenging conditions confronting the medical profession and societies in the 21st century. A major metabolic consequence of obesity is insulin resistance, which is strongly associated with deposition of fat and uncontrolled glucose production in the liver, thereby contributing to the development of type 2 diabetes. The complex etiology of insulin resistance remains poorly understood thus impeding the development of new innovative medicines. Researchers of 'The LiverX Project' will develop a framework that integrates prior knowledge on cellular signaling with systematically acquired quantitative and dynamic data on the insulin and metabolic control networks in the context of single cells, organ and whole organism and subjects with insulin resistance to develop predictive models of insulin resistance. This project is one of three major ongoing programs in medical systems biology at the Competence Center for Systems Physiology and Metabolic Diseases (CC-SPMD). As alterations in metabolic control networks are associated with many other diseases including cancer, the generated data will have implications far beyond the project itself by providing new perspectives for the treatment of metabolism-associated disorders.

The RTD-Project 'LiverX: Systems Biology of Hepatic Insulin Resistance' is one of eight proposals which were chosen for funding by SystemsX.ch (March 2008).

Please find an article on the project in the SystemsX.ch Newsletter (April 2011) here »» (p. 6f)

Research groups collaborating in LiverX

Prof. Rudolf Aebersold
Prof. Peter Bühlmann
Prof. Joachim Buhmann
Prof. Markus Heim (University Hospital Basel)
Prof. Wilhelm Krek
Prof. Luke Lee (University of California, Berkeley)
Prof. Holger Moch
Prof. Matthias Peter
Prof. Volker Roth (University Basel)
Prof. Markus Rudin
Prof. Uwe Sauer
Prof. Giatgen Spinas
Prof. Jörg Stelling
Prof. Markus Stoffel
Dr. Nicola Zamboni