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Last month, roughly 5,000 liver community stakeholders gathered in London for the 2022 International Liver Congress (#ILC2022.) On Thursday afternoon, Scott Friedman chaired an abstract session discussing advances in the basic science of researching and understanding mechanisms surrounding fibrosis and stellate cells. Later, he described it as "one of the most exciting groups of presentations I've seen in many years." This presentation centers on the relationship between Circadian rhythms and stellate cells.

It is widely known that we all function under a set of Circadian rhythms tied to day/night changes. Original work in this area focused on physiological changes linked to the central nervous system. In recent years, researchers have learned that other tissues in the body operate on their own Circadian rhythms, presumably tied in some way to the central nervous system. But as Scott exclaims when beginning this discussion, "who would have thought that that included the lowly little hepatic stellate cell, a fibrogenic cell that contains the same mechanisms and the same machinery to regulate circadian rhythm as all those more specialized neuronal tissues." 

Scott goes on to provide greater detail on the mechanisms through which stellate calls control fibrogenic activity in a cyclical manner. When he concludes, the rest of the group shares comments. Neil Henderson notes that Circadian rhythms are strongly tied to fibrogenic processes throughout the body. Jörn Schattenberg, Louise Campbell and Rachel Zayas comment in different ways on the relevance of circadian rhythms to elements of patient care today, and Roger Green asks a question that leads Scott to note that TGF beta, which he described as "the mother of all fibrogenic cytokines," was the signaling mechanisms for this process.