MD Biosciences Blog

Over the past couple of decades, nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) and nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) have become the number one cause of liver disease in Western countries. Recent data confirm that NAFLD and NASH play an equally important role in the Middle East, Far East, Africa, the Caribbean, and Latin America. The prevalence of NAFLD/NASH continues to increase along with its associated risk factors, including metabolic disorder, obesity, diabetes and hypertension. Therefore, understanding the mechanism of these diseases has become a priority. Recent investigations into the effect of chronic liver inflammation have shed light on the role of both the adaptive and innate immune systems in both NAFLD and NASH. Long suspected to play a part in such metabolic disorders along with nutrition and hormonal imbalances, the immune system has been of great interest to researchers for development of specific drug targets to maximize glucose regulation, minimize inflammatory damage to tissues and prevent the development of fibrosis that can lead to liver failure.

The 2015 annual AMP meeting opened Novemeber 5^th in Austin TX, with a presentation by Dr Brian Druker titled “Imatinib as a Paradigm of Targeted Cancer Therapies.”  This year’s recipient of the AMP Award for Excellence in Molecular Diagnostics, Dr Druker highlighted the importance of identifying patients through biomarkers and matching therapies to the patient.  This theme continued through many of the presentations, posters and vendor exhibits the importance of providing physicians actionable results for patient care and therapeutics.  Molecular diagnostics are critical to any discussion on precision or personalized medicine. 

MD Biosciences will be attending the Association for Molecular Pathology 2015 Conference in Austen Texas on November 5-7. The conference will focus on “realizing the dream of precision medicine”. As a CLIA lab, we are looking forward to meeting with our colleagues in the diagnostic industry and discussing the latest updates in testing and treatments in cancer and infectious diseases. Additionally, we are excited to hear about the cutting edge research occurring in clinical translational medicine and pharmacogenomics. Please contact us at info-us@mdbiosciences.com if you would like to meet at the conference. Stay tuned for our blog recap of the event.