The Advanced Biomedical Research Laboratory (ABRL) is committed to serving as a platform to develop breakthrough discoveries. ABRL’s area of expertise is liver cancer. To combat the limitations of existing liver cancer therapies, ABRL took a holistic view of tumors, constructing a 3-dimensional (3D) tumor microenvironment in vitro to fully understand tumor development, progression, chemo-resistance and treatment response which can be used as a platform for anti-cancer drug discovery, improving personalized cancer therapy.

In general, liver cancer is accompanied by fibrosis, cirrhosis and liver-related disease. Yet, scientists have mainly focused on elimination of hepatocellular cacinoma (HCC) for liver cancer therapy. ABRL challenged various strategies such as anti-fibrotic, anti-inflammatory, molecular target approaches and regulation of metabolic dysregulation in liver disease using small molecule, recombinant proteins, natural compounds, and traditional oriental medicines for treatment of HCC and prevention of HCC development in progressive fibrotic liver diseases.

ABRL also worked to establish 3D spheroid models for development of novel therapeutic drugs for infectious diseases caused by viruses, parasites, bacteria, etc., since 3D tissue model serves as an effective tool for studying infectious diseases.

Our present activity focuses on:
• Investigating reciprocal crosstalk between the tumor and tumor microenvironment to reveal new information on infrastructure that supports tumor existence
• Discovering new biomarker(s) for early diagnosis of liver cancer and novel target(s) for liver cancer therapy
• Establishing 3D tumor microenvironment platform for anti-liver cancer drug discovery
• Development of innovative strategy for reprogramming of fibrotic microenvironment
• Applying 3D tissue models to infectious disease research