Judy_Liu
Judy Shih-Hwa Liu is the Sidney A. Fox and Dorothea Doctors Fox Professor of Ophthalmology and Neuroscience at Brown University. She works on the cortical malformations that cause epilepsy.
Liu earned a Bachelor of Science at Yale University. She moved to New York for her graduate studies, and completed a PhD and MD at Albert Einstein College of Medicine. After her MD she completed a medical internship in internal medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. She was appointed as a neurological resident at Beth Israel in 2001.
Liu studies epilepsy which arises from focal cortical dysplasia.[1] She investigates the surgically removed tissues and found that they are influenced by circadian rhythm. The protein CLOCK (Circadian Locomotor Output Cycles Kaput) is a transcription factor that is important in regulating circadian rhythm in the suprachiasmatic nucleus.[2] Liu analysed the transcriptome of surgically removed tissues and found differences in the RNA of CLOCK.[3] They created mouse models, one with neurons defunct in CLOCK and the other with neurons lacking inhibitory cells.[3] The mice without limited CLOCK suffered from epilepsy similar to humans.[3] In 2017 she was awarded a Citizens United for Research in Epilepsy award to study the molecular CLOCK and sleep-associated seizures.[4] She contributed to the 2012 book Jasper's Basic Mechanisms of the Epilepsies.[5]
She was awarded the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation NASRAD Young Investigator Award and a Whitehall Foundation grant to study the cell biology that underlies the development of axons.[6][7] In 2013 she was awarded a grant to study the molecular mechanisms that prevent the initiation of seizures.[8] The grant looks to identify the changes in mRNA and microRNA in people who suffer from cortical dysplasia and tuberous sclerosis.[8]
- "Liu, Judy". vivo.brown.edu. Retrieved 2019-01-06.
- "Circadian Gene Linked to Severe Epilepsy in Children". The Scientist Magazine®. Retrieved 2019-01-06.
- "Faulty Neuronal Time-Keeping Causes Epilepsy". Neuroscience from Technology Networks. Retrieved 2019-01-06.
- "Loss Of Function Of The Circadian Molecular Clock May Underlie The Sleep/Epilepsy Relationship". CURE Epilepsy. 2018-08-24. Retrieved 2019-01-06.
- Jasper, Herbert Henri (2012-06-29). Jasper's Basic Mechanisms of the Epilepsies. Oxford University Press, USA. ISBN 9780199746545.
- "Young Investigator Grants" (PDF). www.bbrfoundation.org. Retrieved 2019-01-06.
- "Posting Expired: Neurobiology/Neuroscience". trialect.com. Retrieved 2019-01-06.
- "Valdez collaboration to search for genetic causes of epilepsy". Fralin Biomedical Research Institute. Retrieved 2019-01-06.