{"id":234703,"date":"2026-04-06T22:18:19","date_gmt":"2026-04-07T03:18:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/04\/new-mouse-model-of-virus-driven-liver-cancer-may-boost-diagnosis-and-treatments"},"modified":"2026-04-06T22:18:19","modified_gmt":"2026-04-07T03:18:19","slug":"new-mouse-model-of-virus-driven-liver-cancer-may-boost-diagnosis-and-treatments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/04\/new-mouse-model-of-virus-driven-liver-cancer-may-boost-diagnosis-and-treatments","title":{"rendered":"New mouse model of virus-driven liver cancer may boost diagnosis and treatments"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/new-mouse-model-of-virus-driven-liver-cancer-may-boost-diagnosis-and-treatments.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Liver cancer is one of the world\u2019s 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 <a href=\"https:\/\/linkinghub.elsevier.com\/retrieve\/pii\/S0168827826000851\" target=\"_blank\">described<\/a> in the Journal of Hepatology.<\/p>\n<p>By infecting ordinary laboratory mice with an engineered version of Norway rat hepacivirus (NrHV)\u2014a close relative of hepatitis C virus (HCV)\u2014and tracking the animals over 18 months, the team documented the progression from chronic viral hepatitis to spontaneous liver cancer.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis model fills a critical gap that has long existed in the field,\u201d says Charles M. Rice, whose Laboratory of Virology and Infectious Disease helmed the study. \u201cFor 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\u2019t possible before.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Liver cancer is one of the world\u2019s 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 [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":662,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-234703","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biotech-medical"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234703","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/662"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=234703"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234703\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=234703"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=234703"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=234703"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}