Snyder Institute team awarded prestigious Presidential Distinction Poster Award

Congratulations to Drs. Mark Swain, MD, and Wagdi Almishri, DVM, PhD, on recently receiving the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases’ (AASLD) Presidential Distinction Poster Award, recognizing research that is classified in the top 5% of scored poster abstracts among thousands from around the world.

Patients with chronic cholestatic liver diseases (CLDs) experience a range of severely debilitating behavioural symptoms, such as altered mood, fatigue, and cognitive dysfunction, collectively termed sickness behaviors. The communication mechanism between the liver and brain that causes sickness behaviours in CLD is poorly understood. This represents a significant knowledge gap that hinders new therapeutic approaches. Drs. Swain and Almishri’s current work focuses on understanding how CLDs affect brain function and contribute to sickness behaviour.

This research is significant as it bridges a critical gap in understanding how liver diseases can affect brain function and cause adverse behavioural symptoms in patients with CLD. By identifying the roles of hypoxia and monocyte accumulation in the brain, it introduces new possibilities for therapies that target not just liver disease but also the associated neurological symptoms.

Learn more here.