School of Pharmacy Faculty Working to Treat Liver Disease
Two faculty members in the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy’s Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences (PSC) are working to create new therapeutic agents to treat a prevalent liver disease. Yan Shu, MD, PhD, and Fengtian Xue, PhD, both associate professors of PSC, are continuing their longtime drug discovery collaboration through a five-year, nearly $2.7 million grant from the National Institutes of Health that could one day treat nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH). Nearly one in eight Americans is affected by NASH, a level of liver damage that can progress to cirrhosis or liver cancer. There are no approved drugs on the market to treat NASH, but Shu and Xue are working on new chemical compounds that have the potential to become future treatments for the condition.
Depicted: Dr. Fengtian Xue (left) and Dr. Yan Shu, two faculty members in the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy’s Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, are continuing their longtime collaboration, focusing on nonalcoholic steatohepatitis, a prevalent liver disease.