Introduction.- The HCV particle and its lifecycle.- Clinical features.- Pathophysiology.- Diagnosis.- Management of HCV infection.- Future challenges.
About the Author: Nicolas Goossens, MD, MSc, is resident in Gastroenterology and Hepatology at the Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology at the Geneva University Hospitals, Switzerland. He is currently research fellow at the Division of Liver Diseases under the guidance of Professor Scott Friedman and Professor Yujin Hoshida at the Mount Sinai Hospital in New York, US. Dr Goossens earned his medical degree in 2005 from Geneva University. After training in Geneva and at the Liver Unit at the King's College Hospital in London, UK, he was board certified by the Swiss Medical Federation in Gastroenterology and then Hepatology in 2013 and 2014, respectively. Dr Goossens earned his MSc in Clinical Evidence Based Health Care from Oxford University, UK. During his current research fellowship in New York, Dr Goossens has focused on the genomic aspects of liver diseases, in particular metabolic liver disease, hepatocellular carcinoma, and chronic hepatitis C. Dr Goossens has authored and co-authored more than 20 peer-reviewed manuscriptsand reviews in the field of hepatology and gastrointestinal disease.
Sophie Clément, MD, PhD, currently works at the Division of Clinical Pathology of the Geneva University Hospitals, Switzerland. In 2005, she joined the Viropathology Unit, headed by Professor Francesco Negro, in the capacity of senior scientist in charge of supervising the different research projects of the laboratory. Dr Clément obtained her PhD degree in Human Sciences from the University Claude Bernard in Lyon, France in 1995. After 2 years of postdoctoral training at Northwestern University of Chicago, US, she joined the laboratory directed by Professor Giulio Gabbiani at the Faculty of Medicine, University of Geneva, mainly focusing her interest on myofibroblast differentiation and fibrosis. Since she joined the laboratory of Professor Negro, she has mainly been involved in projects focusing on the metabolic disorders associated with hepatitis C virus infection, and more specifically on the mechanisms leading to insulin resistance and steatosis. She has published 25 peerreviewed journal articles in the hepatology and hepatitis field as either first author or co-author.
Francesco Negro, MD, is Professor at the Departments of Specialty Medicine and of Pathology and Immunology of the University of Geneva, Switzerland. He is also Founder and Chairman of the Swiss Hepatitis C Cohort Study, and Educational Councillor of the European Association for the Study of the Liver. Professor Negro earned his medical degree in 1982 and was board certified in Gastroenterology in 1986 at the University of Torino, Italy. He undertook post-doctoral training at the Division of Molecular Virology and Immunology, Georgetown University, US, and at the Hepatitis Section, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutesof Health, US, between 1986 and 1989. Professor Negro analyzed hepatitis C virus (HCV) replication at the tissue level using several distinct approaches, establishing anatomo-clinical correlations. His studies led him to associate HCV genotype 3a with a particular form of severe liver steatosis, and to analyse the mechanisms thereof. More recently, Professor Negro's work has focused on the pathogenesis of extrahepatic manifestations associated with HCV, and, particularly, on the mechanisms leading to glucose metabolism alterations, such as insulin resistance and diabetes, and on the epidemiology of HCV. He has participated in several clinical trials in acute and chronic HCV and hasauthored or co-authored more than 250 peer-reviewed manuscripts in the field of hepatology.