Liver cancer is one of the world’s deadliest cancers, and most cases are linked to chronic viral hepatitis. Yet scientists have lacked an animal model that faithfully recapitulates how the disease unfolds in people, from initial infection with a virus to liver inflammation, scarring, and cancer. Now, researchers at The Rockefeller University have developed that model, as described in the Journal of Hepatology.

By infecting ordinary laboratory mice with an engineered version of Norway rat hepacivirus (NrHV)—a close relative of hepatitis C virus (HCV)—and tracking the animals over 18 months, the team documented the progression from chronic viral hepatitis to spontaneous liver cancer.

“This model fills a critical gap that has long existed in the field,” says Charles M. Rice, whose Laboratory of Virology and Infectious Disease helmed the study. “For the first time, we have a system in which natural chronic viral infection drives liver cancer in an immunologically healthy animal, opening the door to studies and preclinical trials that simply weren’t possible before.”