Dr. Liu’s laboratory is studying how genetic variants impact gene expression, protein abundance and various levels of regulatory networks, ultimate influence the risks of developing major psychiatric disorders, treatment responses, as well as related psychological, behavioral traits. Funded by NIH, his current projects are about regulatory networks in genomics, epigenomics, and proteomics of postmortem brains. Multiple advanced sequencing-based technologies, cell biology and bioinformatics methods are commonly used in this lab to facilitate discovery of risk genes and pathways.

EDUCATION INTERESTS

Training young scientistis with passion and interests to work for improving human life and health.

ASSOCIATIONS / MEMBERSHIPS

American College of Neuropsychopharmacology

American Society of Human Genetics (ASHG)

International Society of Psychiatric Genetics (ISPG)

EDUCATION

PhD: Hunan Medical University, Hunan, China, 1998, Medical Genetics

RESEARCH ABSTRACT

Dr. Liu has a long-term interest in understanding of molecular basis of psychiatric diseases. His laboratory participated in one of the bipolar genetics research consortiums and discovered the rare copy number variant (CNV) burden in early-onset bipolar disorder. His lab is one of the leading research groups on genome-wide study of postmortem brain gene expression and DNA methylation, pioneered in study of gene expression regulatory network in human brain. He established the methylation quantitative trait loci (mQTLs) in human brain, indicating that DNA methylation of some sequences could be highly regulated by genetic variants. His lab currently focuses more on understanding genomic and epigenomic mechanisms in human brains for psychiatric disorders. His research has been supported by NIMH, NARSAD, and Brain Research Foundation. He has published more than 100 peer-reviewed papers and several book chapters, and been cited for more than 7,000 times, with H-index of 37. He has served as reviewer for dozens of journals and foundations including NIH. Dr. Liu’s major research focuses on using a comprehensive approach that is composed of genetics, bioinformatics, genomics, cellular and animal models to identify the molecular mechanisms of major psychiatric diseases, particularly bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. Constructing multidimensional regulatory network in human brains, and relating that to etiology and pathology of mental illness is the major mission of this lab.

Current major NIH-funded project is the psychENCODE project, investigating multi-dimensional biological features, networks in brains of bipolar disorder, schizophrenia and normal.