Among the "firsts" achieved by the staff of the University of Illinois Medical Center are:

• The world's first combined living donor liver-bowel transplant

• The first description of the life cycle of the hepatitis C virus, leading to new treatments with cure rates exceeding 50%

• The first fully robotic major hepatectomy in the USA

• The first demonstration of the role of interferon in inhibiting viral production that changed the treatment of the hepatitis C virus

• The world's first robotic surgical removal of a kidney for a living donor kidney transplant

• The first evidence that moderate amounts of alcohol consumption accelerate hepatitis C progression

Advancements in gastrointestinal and liver disease:

• Gaining insight into the molecular basis of cancer development and new ways to treat it in its early stages

• Exploring hepatitis B and C and the ethnic/racial factors associated with liver disease progression

• Measuring liver fat content and investigating new treatment strategies for nonalcoholic fatty liver disease

• Identifying populations at greatest risk for future liver cancer

• Advancing cancer chemoprevention efforts

• Understanding genetic, cellular, biological and molecular changes associated with cancer

• Studying the spread of cancer throughout the body