Liver-Related Work

I am currently completing a manuscript on treatment of HCV post-transplant and have applied for VA start-up funding to study genomics of patients with cirrhosis and HCC. My work also includes collaboration with a computing group at CMU to develop liver allocation models for transplant using machine learning. The main clinical and research interests of my work are: progression of chronic liver disease, hepatocarcinogenesis, and donor allocation models. I see patients in the clinic, and I am enrolling patients with cirrhosis—with or without HCC—in a follow up prospective study.  Blood samples are acquired yearly. I plan to start banking tissue from participants who undergo liver transplant. I collaborate with Dr Scott Kulich, who is the chief of molecular anatomic pathology at the VA, and whose lab has the ability to peform NexGen sequencing.