Sayed Obaidullah Aseem, MD, PhD

Biography

With a focus on research, a physician-scientist on your side in the fight against complex liver diseases

For patients with complex and advanced liver diseases, Dr. Sayed Obaidullah Aseem is a hepatologist you want in your corner.

Aseem is a physician at VCU Health and researcher at VCU’s Stravitz-Sanyal Institute for Liver Disease & Metabolic Health. He diagnoses, treats and researches auto-immune liver diseases (when the body attacks the liver) and other advanced and complex liver conditions, with a special focus on cholestatic liver diseases that impact the flow of bile in the liver. Such conditions can lead to serious health issues, often requiring liver transplants performed at the VCU Hume-Lee Transplant Center.

“What I appreciate about VCU Health is the diversity of patients we serve — from all walks of life, all races, all ethnicities,” he says. “That diversity gives us as healthcare providers a breadth of experience in serving others. There’s great joy to be had and a sense of accomplishment that you are there to help everybody no matter who they are. But it also allows us to spot underserved areas, monitor diseases, and contribute to the overall health of our community.”

In particular, Aseem diagnoses and treats primary sclerosing cholangitis (PSC) and primary biliary cholangitis (PBC), which can lead to fibrosis (scarring) in the liver.

Why those two diseases? “Because there are no approved or effective treatments for PSC and PBC remains difficult to control in a significant number of patients afflicted by this disease. My goal is to find treatments that specifically target the diseases and enroll patients in clinical trials to explore new therapies,” he says.

For any treatment he can offer for those conditions, therapies are individualized to the patient. He also collaborates with a large multidisciplinary team of physicians, pharmacists, social workers and surgeons to determine the best course of action.

"From the assessment stage to the surgery and post-transplant care, it's a complete team-based approach. For some people, we have treatments that slow the progression or halt it,” he says. “Despite these efforts, a good number of patients eventually require liver transplantation.”

He wishes that wasn’t the case. And so, he leads research into the conditions, “to better understand how these diseases develop at a molecular level,” focused on stopping fibrosis.

“I’ve spent years studying the cellular and genetic factors that contribute to this scarring,” he says.

That work began with training in a Medical Scientist Training Program (M.D./Ph.D. training program) at the Medical University of South Carolina, funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and later during post-doctoral work at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., where he completed a residency in internal medicine and held fellowships in transplant hepatology, gastroenterology and hepatology. In 2021, his team published groundbreaking research in the top-tier medical journal Gastroenterology that identified a new way to reverse biliary fibrosis by targeting a specific enzyme involved in the disease process.

At the Stravitz-Sanyal Institute for Liver Disease & Metabolic Health at VCU, his lab is a continuation of those efforts, investigating how liver cells lining the bile ducts interact with the immune system and eventually lead to fibrosis.

“My goal is to find treatments that specifically target the disease processes without causing side effects,” he says. “Through my combined efforts in the lab and the clinic, I hope to discover new therapies that can slow or stop these diseases, ultimately improving the lives of my patients who currently have limited treatment options.”

Advice to Patients:

"I will provide you with treatment options, but ultimately, the most important question is: What is best for you? My goal is always to ensure the best possible care for each of my patients. Together, through mutual trust and respect, we will reach that decision."