Description of Research Expertise

Research Interests
Hepatitis B viruses and liver cancer.

Key words: Hepatitis viruses, liver cancer, hepatocellular carcinoma, hepatocytes

Description of Research
The Hepatitis B virus chronically infects hepatocytes, the major cell type of the liver. This infection does not, by itself, appear to be cytopathic, and most individuals infected as adults clear the infection after a few months. However, about 10% of infected adults and most people infected as children will fail to clear the virus and will remain virus carriers throughout their lifetime. These individuals will experience chronic liver disease because of the immune response to viral antigens expressed on infected cells and, in consequence of the chronic liver damage, about 10% will eventually develop liver cancer, a generally fatal disease. The goals of the research in my laboratory are to understand why some hosts fail to clear an infection, to devise protocols that will induce virus clearance, to determine whether the termination of a chronic infection reduces the risk of liver cancer, and to identify the sequence of changes in the liver that lead to hepatocellular carcinoma. Experiments towards these goals are carried out in cell culture systems as well as in animals chronically infected with duck hepatitis B virus or woodchuck hepatitis virus.

Rotation Projects for 2006-2007
Please speak to Dr. Mason.

Lab personnel:
Chunxiao Xu - Postdoctoral Fellow