News & Events: Health
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PBPK Modeling Course at The Hamner Institutes, March 28 - April 1, 2011
The Hamner Institutes to host course on PBPK Modeling and its Applications from March 28 - April 1, 2011.
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TCDD May Contribute to Immune System Instability
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The Hamner: Better Liver Function Tests On The Horizon
RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C. – The Hamner Institutes for Health Sciences (www.thehamner.org), an independent, nonprofit organization that offers an open, collaborative and cross-disciplinary approach to translational biomedical research, has announced that recent studies at The Hamner have provided a new method to assess the health of the liver, a vital organ that can be injured by a variety of diseases, alcohol, and certain drugs. The blood tests physicians currently use to monitor liver health are not always accurate. Even when these tests are abnormal, they often do not indicate the cause of the liver problem. Research reported in the May issue of Hepatology indicates that there may be a new way to analyze blood to view a window into the health of the liver. Small particles produced by the liver and circulating in the blood contain information that may be used to better detect liver injury and could provide unique information to diagnose the cause of the injury. The research was based on observations originally made by scientists at the drug company Pfizer, which has licensed patent rights for the technology to the Hamner Institutes for Health Sciences.