2025 Inaugural Cholestatic Liver Disease Summit

PROJECT SUMMARY The Inaugural Cholestatic Liver Disease Summit will be held June 26-27, 2025 at Children’s Hospital Colorado and the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Denver, CO. The concept for this Cholestatic Liver Disease Summit was developed through a collaboration between three 501c3 nonprofit patient advocacy organizations in the cholestatic liver disease space – BARE Inc. (biliary atresia), PFIC Network (progressive familial intrahepatic cholestasis) and ALGSA (Alagille Syndrome Alliance). This event will be held in connection with family conferences held by these 3 organizations, allowing for free interaction and exchange of ideas between clinicians, scientists, patients and families. The 2025 Cholestatic Liver Disease Summit will address an unmet need in the scientific and clinical communities, both academic and industrial, by focusing on the common pathophysiology, models for study, and therapeutic challenges met by academic and industry practitioners in the field. We plan to use the program of this meeting to mix speakers representing diverse areas of cholangiocyte and hepatocyte biology, in clinical, basic and translational research, to foster networking opportunities and generate a platform for open discussion regarding the scientific and therapeutic challenges unique to this field. The goal will be realized by bringing together 1) clinicians that treat patients with pediatric cholestatic liver diseases, 2) investigators that focus on mechanistic aspects of bile duct development, hepatocyte canalicular development, cholestasis and cholangiopathies, 3) industry partners interested in the rare disease space, and 4) patients, families, caretakers, and patient advocates. Our goal is to not only disseminate cutting edge information to patients, advocates, clinicians, scientists and industry representatives, but also to generate a forum in which cutting edge technologies, ideas and discoveries can be freely exchanged to stimulate new research. The Specific Aim for this interdisciplinary meeting is to bring together a diverse community of clinicians and scientists engaged in the care of patients with these rare disorders and discovery of possible avenues to new, safer and more effective treatments. The 2 keynote speakers, 12 invited speakers and 14 senior discussion leaders represent world leaders with vast knowledge and cutting-edge discoveries in their respective fields. This conference will provide education to everyone and stimulate development of young investigators with inclusion of 8 short talks and 10 flash talks selected from abstracts. Significantly, the environment and time set aside for formal and informal discussion will generate a forum in which cutting edge technologies, ideas and discoveries can be freely exchanged, stimulating new ideas and collaborations. Most importantly, this forum will provide the opportunity for academics, industry representatives, patients and their families to interact and learn from each other.