S2-E53 - SurfingNASH Previews AASLD 2021: the Digital Liver Meeting

Send us Fan MailManal Abdelmalek, Ken Cusi and Jörn Schattenberg join Louise Campbell and Roger Green to discuss key presentations at AASLD 2021 and preview SurfingNASH's coverage of the event. This virtual meeting runs from November 12-15 and is scheduled on East Coast time.Highlights include:9:19 – Roger begins the conversation, by describing the AASLD program elements and what SurfingNASH will cover.10:46 – Manal Abdelmalek kicks us off by focusing on Dr. Neil Henderson’s Hans Popper (Basic State of Science) Lecture and the relevance his talk will have meaning for NAFLD and NASH.12:53 – Ken Cusi links this talk to Monday’s Emerging Trends Symposium on “Tailoring NASH Therapy.”15:26 – Manal identifies Friday’s Liver Cell Biology SIG, with its focus on gut-liver access and gut microbiota triggering, as another source of knowledge and insight for future potential NASH therapies16:45 – Jörn Schattenberg raises Parallel Session 10 on Diagnostics and Biomarkers of NAFLD (Sunday, 10:00a) which will focus on LITMUS work in which he participated. He goes on to describe the research and how it can drive better patient treatment in advance of medications.19:05 – Louise discusses the Public Health and Healthcare Delivery SIG (Friday, 5:30p). She is excited that the session will discuss the foundational role a behavioral approach health can play, particularly in the absence of medications. 19:58 – Roger, Louise, Jörn and Manal mention Friday afternoon sessions of particular interest. 22:51 – Louise identifies “a couple of really good sessions on Saturday,” the Women’s Health Program (4:00p) and Parallel Session 2 on “Health Services and Public Health” (10:00a)23:20 – Ken Cusi summarizes some high points of the post-graduate course. 25:34 – Manal kicks off our conversation of Sunday presentations by discussing two talks from the plenary sessions: the presentation of the Alpine 2/3 results by Stephen Harrison and the longitudinal association between MRE and liver-related and cardiovascular events in NAFLD.  Jörn adds a though by noting the inclusion of CVD results and then discussing their meaning.28:03 – Manal notes the presentation from the Million Veteran program, 28:33 – Roger discusses some speculation from the podcast around the time of the aldafermin withdrawal and expresses the hope we will learn whether aldafermin was more a clinical or commercial failure. Jörn questions whether the decision to read out biopsies at 24 weeks may have been part of the reason the trial missed its primary endpoint29:42 – Louise points out Parallel Session 17 titled “NAFLD and NASH: Predicting Outcomes and Response to Interventions” (Sunday, 4:00p) and its possible connection to some recent podcast topics30:08 – Manal refers to the diagnosis and biomarker session Sunday as an opportunity to delve deeper into machine learning and artificial intelligence, after which Roger and Manal discuss the insights that AI  improves and those it does not. 32:14 – Ken raises the joint AASLD-ALEH symposium Sunday (1:00p) as an excellent opportunity to learn more about the challenges stakeholders face in Latin and South Ameria and the southwestern US.33:29 – Jörn notes that the panel has not discussed the sessions covering clinical trials of novel therapies and identifies some trials of interest.36:14 – Manal mentions a paper at Parallel Session #33, Experimental Advances in NAFLD (Monday, 3:00p) that looks at single-cell RNA sequencing in mice to identify that hedgehog signaling in hepatocytes is a critical early event for NAFLD fibrosis in humans.37:25 – Ken expresses optimism about the quality of the meeting, departs. 39:01 – Louise, Jörn and Roger identify other sessions of interest on Monday.42:23 – Final question focuses on what panelists anticipate will be the most powerful takeaway from the meeting. 46:33 – Business Section