Currently, the only hope for many patients has been a liver transplant - but there are too few organs available, so other treatments are urgently needed.

The UK research involves taking blood from the patient and separating it into its component parts.

Stem cells are isolated from the white blood cells and injected into the hepatic artery in the liver, while the red blood cells are returned to the body through the arm.

Laboratory tests have shown the treatment can improve the function of the liver by repopulating it with stem cells.

In the Japanese study, mouse livers were damaged by injecting them with a chemical which causes fibrosis, where scar tissue develops in the liver.

It can go on to develop into cirrhosis when nodules of cells form at the junctions of the fibrous strands.

After four weeks, they took bone marrow cells from donor mice that had had been treated with a jellyfish gene to make their cells glow green.

This allowed the researchers to track the progress of the cells.

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