Congratulations Dr Randall F D’Souza who was awarded a one-year ALTA fellowship award ($87,500) for the best basic research proposal related to Alpha-1 Antitrypsin (A1AT) research. He currently works at the discipline of nutrition with his research primarily focusing on understanding the underlying mechanisms that drive diet-induced non-alcoholic fatty liver diseases (NAFLD) in mice.
The proposed research hypothesizes neutrophils as important regulators of the escalation process of benign early stage NAFLD to more severe non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH). To date there are not FDA approved therapeutics for NASH. His project aims to utilize purified human plasma-derived A1AT an inhibitor of specific neutrophil proteases as a potential therapeutic for NASH.