Josep M. Llovet

Josep M. Llovet

Institut d'Investigacions Biomèdiques August Pi i Sunyer

Life & Medical Sciences

Josep M Llovet, MD, PhD is ICREA Research Prof at IDIBAPS-Hospital Clínic and Full Prof of Medicine – Hepatic Oncology at the University of Barcelona. He is also Full Professor of Medicine and Director of the Liver Cancer Program at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai (New York). He has published 306 manuscripts in Liver Cancer (citations:77017;h-index:112; IF:4675;). Top 1% most cited researcher globally by Clarivate Analytics (2014-20), President of ILCA (2011-13), Senior Editor CCR, lectured > 605 international meetings and has been the PI of European grants FP7-HEPTROMIC,HEP-CAR, Accelerator Award, NIH-NIDDK R01-award, I+D and competitive private grants. Achievements a) Establishing therapies as standard of care for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) –sorafenib, regorafenib and ramucirumab; b) Defining molecular classes of HCC and cholangiocarcinoma (CCA) and c) discovery of drivers as therapeutic targets (i.e mTOR, IGF signalling) for HCC and FGFR2 fusion (CCA).


Research interests

Prof Josep M. Llovet has been working in clinical and translational research in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and cholangiocarcinoma (ICC) for the last 25 years. He is leading international randomized trials in HCC on novel targeted therapies and developing a molecular classification of the disease, understanding the genetic aberrations and signaling pathways involved and in the identification of new molecular targeted therapies. He has organized the HCC Genomic Consortium and the HEPTROMIC Consortium that includes several international HCC research centers: IDIBAPS-Hospital Clínic, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, INSERM, Univ. Tuebingen, Dana-Farber-MIT-Broad Institute and NCI. The main future areas of interest are a) identify biomarkers predicting response to sorafenib and checkpoint inhibitors (nivolumab) or mechanisms of resistance b) translate oncogenic drivers discoveries as targeted therapies in HCC and ICC, c) unraveling the molecular traits of NASH-HCC.

Selected publications

– Bassaganyas L, Pinyol R, Esteban-Fabro R, Torrens L, Torrecilla S, Willoughby CE, Franch-Exposito S, Vila-Casadesus M, Salaverria I, Montal R, Mazzaferro V, Camps J, Sia D, Llovet JM. 2020, ‘Copy-Number Alteration Burden Differentially Impacts Immune Profiles and Molecular Features of Hepatocellular Carcinoma’, Clinical Cancer Research, 26, 23, 6350-6361

– Carrillo-Reixach J, …, Llovet JM, Armengol C* 2020. ‘Epigenetic footprint enables molecular risk stratification of hepatoblastoma with clinical implications’. J Hepatol. 73:328-341

– Montal R, Sia D, Montironi C, Leow WQ, Esteban-Fabro R, Pinyol R, Torres-Martin M, Bassaganyas L, Moeini A, Peix J, Cabellos L, Maeda M, Villacorta-Martin C, Tabrizian P, Rodriguez-Carunchio L, Castellano G, Sempoux C, Minguez B, Pawlik TM, Labgaa I, Roberts LR, Sole M, Fiel MI, Thung S, Fuster J, Roayaie S, Villanueva A, Schwartz M, Llovet JM. 2020, ‘Molecular classification and therapeutic targets in extrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma’, J Hepatol, 73, 2, 315-327

– Llovet, JM, Lencioni, R. 2020, ‘mRECIST for HCC: Performance and novel refinements’, J Hepatol, 72, 2, 288-306

– Nault JC, Cheng AL, Sangro B, Llovet JM. 2020, ‘Milestones in the pathogenesis and management of primary liver cancer’, J Hepatol, 72, 2, 209-214

– Losic B, Craig AJ, Villacorta-Martin C, Martins-Filho SN, Akers N, Chen X, Ahsen ME, von Felden J, Labgaa I, DʹAvola D, Allette K, Lira SA, Furtado GC, Garcia-Lezana T, Restrepo P, Stueck A, Ward SC, Fiel MI, Hiotis SP, Gunasekaran G, Sia D, Schadt EE, Sebra R, Schwartz M, Llovet JM, Thung S, Stolovitzky G, Villanueva A. 2020. “Intratumoral heterogeneity and clonal evolution in liver cancer”. Nat Commun.11:291

– Franch-Exposito S, Bassaganyas L, Vila-Casadesús M, Hernández-Illán E, Esteban-Fabró R, Díaz-Gay M, Lozano JJ, Castells A, Llovet JM, Castellví-Bel S, Camps J. 2020. “CNApp, a tool for the quantification of copy number alterations and integrative analysis revealing clinical implications”. Elife. 15:e50267