Wanqing Liu
Wayne State University, MI·Genetics
Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), in which fat builds up in the liver, is the most common chronic liver disease, affecting over 30% of the U.S. population.
- Fields
Genetics
Medicine & Clinical Research
Pharmacology
- Topics
nonalcoholic fatty liver disease
heavy metals
lead
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Mar 2028
What they work on
- Measure heavy metals such as lead, cadmium, mercury and arsenic in 560 frozen human liver samples, identify metal-response genes and gene-activity variants (eQTLs), and test their associations with NAFLD.
- Treat primary human liver cell populations with metals and use single-cell RNA sequencing and ATAC-seq, which maps open DNA regions, to learn how each liver cell type's genome responds.
- Validate whether gene-by-heavy-metal interactions are associated with the severity of liver tissue damage in a clinically defined cohort of 1,313 NAFLD patients.
More about the research
There is no approved drug for it. NAFLD arises from both genes and environment. Large genetic studies have found many risk gene variants, and exposure to heavy metals such as lead, cadmium, mercury and arsenic has been linked to higher risk. But no strong study has tied metals naturally built up in human livers to the tissue damage seen in NAFLD patients, or shown how those metals interact with a person's genes.
Why it matters
NAFLD affects nearly a third of U.S. adults and has no approved drug. Identifying which heavy metals raise risk, and which genes respond to them, could help doctors find high-risk patients and support new strategies for NAFLD diagnosis, prevention and treatment. The shared data could also aid research on related liver diseases.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Vaia Lida Chatzi
University of Southern California, CA·Public Health & Epidemiology
Examine associations of PFAS exposure with omics biomarkers and with obesity, type 2 diabetes, and MASLD (fatty liver disease) in more than 50,000 participants from 18 diverse cohorts.
Mariana Lazo Elizondo
Drexel University, PA·Public Health & Epidemiology
Characterize racial/ethnic disparities in fatty liver disease incidence over 10 years in the MESA cohort using CT-measured liver fat and liver enzymes, while accounting for genetic variants such as PNPLA3.
Tatiana Kisseleva
University of Southern California, CA·Medicine & Clinical Research
Identify genes that are more active in hepatic stellate cells (the liver's scar-forming cells) from human AALD livers than in normal, NAFL or NASH livers, using single-nucleus RNA sequencing (snRNA-seq).
The school
Wayne State University: 21 labs on PI Pages, $292M a year on research, 194 research doctorates a year.
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