The research group of the Department of Medical Sciences of the University of Turin, coordinated by Prof.ssa Elisabetta Bugianesi, is the Italian leader of the international project LITMUS (Liver Investigation: Testing Marker Utility in Steatohepatitis). The projects received a funding of €34 million from the European Community within the European Innovative Medicines Initiative 2 Joint Undertaking (IMI2), which unites doctors and scientists from major academic centres in Europe along with companies from the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries Associations (EFPIA). The project’s common goal is to develop and disseminate more accurate liver damage biomarkers for use in NAFLD. The LITMUS project includes 47 research partners with offices in major international universities and some of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies. LITMUS is coordinated by the University of Newcastle in the UK, which works closely with the main EFPIA partner, Pfizer Ltd. Italian participating institutions, led by the University of Turin are; the Universities of Milan, Florence, Palermo, CNR of Pisa, the Marche Polytechnic University and the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Rome. LITMUS is a pioneering European research project that aims to identify and develop new diagnostic tests to evaluate patients with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), in order to identify those at greater risk of developing chronic hepatitis with severe inflammation and fibrosis (scarring) in the liver. NAFLD, which affects 20 to 30% of the world’s population, is caused by an accumulation of fat in the liver cells, which in some cases may cause inflammation, fibrosis of the liver tissue and eventually cirrhosis.
