Seth Laboratory

My multi-national GenomALC Consortium pioneers the genetics of liver diseases through applying ‘multi-omics’ and has significantly advanced the field through novel discoveries: biomarkers (lipidome, miRNAs, transcriptome), underlying clinical (epidemiology) and genetic (Genome Wide Association studies) risks. 

Our genetic risk algorithms, Genetic Risk Score (GRS) identifying asymptomatic high-risk alcohol-related liver disease (ALD) patients, and Polygenic Risk Score (PRS) identifying both ALD and metabolic-dysfunction associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD) are ready for clinical trials. This game changing practice based on personalised risk, allows early intervention for the first time to prevent disease progression. Beyond ALD patients, the impact is far reaching, also for alcohol use disorders (AUD) and MASLD patients.

My research establishing a sophisticated alcohol use biomarker (Phosphatidylethanol (PEth)) test at RPAH is the only such Australian service. PEth has been adopted into clinical assessment and selection criteria for transplant patients, helping clinicians for the first time to modify pre-transplant measures and manage post-transplant outcomes. This significant paradigm shift in transplant clinic results in positive health and economic benefits.

My team has created novel CRISPR-Cas9 genetic models of fatty liver in zebrafish to study pathobiology of lipid genetics/lipotoxicity underlying progression to cirrhosis. Current interest is to directly target excess hepatic lipid and lipotoxicity creating novel plasma polymerised nanoparticle delivery systems using a multidisciplinary approach in collaboration with USYD Biomedical Engineering.