It is also working with liver experts, and it held a conference in February with them and the drug industry to develop better ways to identify potentially toxic drugs and spot problems once a drug is approved.
It pointed out that consultant hepatologists - liver experts - were present in only 28% of hospitals, while just 23% had dedicated alcohol-care teams to provide comprehensive support.
An independent panel of liver experts reviewed this case and considered Hy's law criteria were met.
"The natural propensity for hematopoietic stem cells to repair the liver is poor," said Dr. Markus Grompe, a liver expert at the Oregon Health and Science University.
Reluctantly obliged to specialise, he became registrar to the great liver expert Sheila Sherlock and spent a year at Yale researching the neurology of diabetes for his MD thesis.
Dr. Irwin A. Arias, a liver expert at Tufts University, said that the work was "brilliant" but that any treatment was "a long, long way off".
"I believe that the reason is the extensive and recurring injury that the liver was exposed to in evolution: rotten food, plant toxins, viruses," says Markus Grompe, a liver expert at the Oregon Health and Science University.
Dr. Arias, the Tufts liver expert, interpreted Dr. DePinho's work more cautiously, saying it was too early even to be sure that short telomeres were the trigger for cirrhosis.
In this week's Scrubbing Up, Dr Nick Sheron, a liver expert at the University of Southampton, explains why we need a blood test to alert people to the harm they could be doing to their body.
David Bernstein, chief of hepatology at North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset, N.Y. on Long Island, has hosted a rising flow of patients in recent years, among them Wall Street pros who have just failed a physical and learned some staggering news: They are infected with hepatitis C. Bernstein, a liver expert, is all too familiar with "hep-C".
Liver expert Dr. Graeme Alexander said that in his opinion Tomlinson had died of internal bleeding as a result of trauma to the liver after the fall.
