Liver cancer is the third leading cause of cancer death. Most of the liver cancer patients die within 5 years after the initial diagnosis. Hepatitis viruses, aflatoxin and alcoholism are the major causes of liver cancer, but how they turn a normal liver cell into a cancer cell has not been yet well understood.  This knowledge will help to develop new diagnostic methods for early detection liver cancer in order to improve the treatment efficacy, and to define the key mechanisms that initiate and perpetuate liver tumor so that they could be targeted by novel therapeutic approaches. Research in our laboratory is focused on a molecule called Socs1 because there is ample evidence that suggest Socs1 plays a key role in preventing liver tumor, but the underlying mechanisms are not known. By elucidating the regulatory functions of SOCS1 in the liver cell, we hope to gain insight into events that precede the development of liver cancer, which could serve as the basis for devising novel therapeutic strategies to arrest the clinical progression of, or even cure, liver cancer.