Thomas F. Baumert, Sabine Wellnitz, Shigeaki Aono, Jujin Satoi, David Herion, J. Tilman Gerlach, Gerd R. Pape, Johnson Y.N. Lau, Jay H. Hoofnagle, Hubert E. Blum, T. Jake Liang – 30 December 2003 – We recently described the efficient assembly of hepatitis C virus (HCV) structural proteins into HCV‐like particles (HCV‐LPs) in insect cells. These noninfectious HCV‐LPs have similar morphologic and biophysical properties as putative virions isolated from HCV‐infected humans and can induce a broadly directed immune response in animal models.

Rene H. M. te Morsche, Petra L. M. Zusterzeel, Maarten T. M. Raijmakers, Eva‐Maria Roes, Eric A. P. Steegers, Wilbert H. M. Peters – 30 December 2003

30 December 2003

James L. Boyer – 30 December 2003

Guadalupe Garcia‐Tsao – 30 December 2003

Mark J. Czaja – 30 December 2003

Vijay Shah – 30 December 2003

Laurent Spahr, Jean‐Pierre Villeneuve, Hanh Khiem Tran, Gilles Pomier‐Layrargues – 30 December 2003 – The diagnosis of refractory ascites in cirrhotic patients carries a poor prognosis and liver transplantation should always be considered in this situation. Identification of patients who will not respond to diuretic therapy usually requires several weeks of observation during which a trial of diuretics is instituted using stepwise increases in dosage in order to classify ascites as refractory.

David Cassiman, Carl Denef, Valeer J. Desmet, Tania Roskams – 30 December 2003 – The expression of neurotrophins and neurotrophin receptors in non‐neural tissue is related to tissue remodeling, differentiation, proliferation and migration of target cells. The literature yields contradictory results on neurotrophin and neurotrophin receptor expression in the liver.

Peter Nagy, Tadahisa Teramoto, Valentina M. Factor, Aranzazu Sanchez, Janos Schnur, Sandor Paku, Snorri S. Thorgeirsson – 30 December 2003 – The liver has an extremely effective regenerative capacity. When 70% of a rat liver is removed by surgery, the liver mass regrows in 7 to 10 days by the compensatory hyperplasia of the remnant part. In case of damage to the surviving hepatocytes, the facultative stem‐cell compartment is activated and the liver regenerates by means of oval‐cell proliferation/differentiation.