Liver cirrhosis is a deadly disease that is still poorly understood, in large part due to the lack of animal models that would allow it to be studied. The Centro Nacional de Investigaciones Oncológicas (CNIO) group led by Nabil Djouder, PhD, has created the first genetically modified mouse that develops liver cirrhosis comparable to human cirrhosis and has thus managed to identify the molecular mechanisms underlying this disease. “Determining the molecular mechanisms causing cirrhosis will help us to understand how it progresses to liver cancer,” Dr. Djouder says. The paper was published on December 24, 2022 in the Journal of Hepatology, a high-impact journal in the field. The article is titled “Histone Acetylation of Bile Acid Transporter Genes Plays a Critical Role in Cirrhosis.”