Nicholette Allred
Wake Forest University, NC·Genetics
Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), the buildup of excess fat in the liver, affects about a quarter of people worldwide. It is the most common cause of chronic liver disease, and there are few ways to prevent or treat it.
- Fields
Genetics
Public Health & Epidemiology
Medicine & Clinical Research
- Topics
non-alcoholic fatty liver disease
hepatic steatosis
whole genome sequencing
- Grants
- 2 known grants, through May 2028
What they work on
- Identify rare genetic variants associated with liver fat in 23,156 ethnically diverse TOPMed participants, using whole genome sequencing with single-variant and gene-level rare-variant burden tests.
- Replicate the rare-variant associations in 8,865 GOLD Consortium participants, whose existing GWAS data are imputed with the TOPMed reference panel.
- Test whether implicated genes cause fat buildup in the liver by knocking them out with CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing and measuring the effect on hepatic steatosis.
- Run a pilot grant program for the North Carolina Diabetes Research Center that funds and mentors early-career diabetes researchers and trains students and postdocs in grant review.
More about the research
NAFLD runs strongly in families, and it is more common in people of Hispanic ancestry than in people of European or African ancestry. This points to genetic differences that are still largely unknown. The genes found so far explain less than 5% of the variation in liver fat.
Why it matters
Few treatments exist for fatty liver disease, the world's leading cause of chronic liver disease. Finding rare genetic variants that raise NAFLD risk, including variants more common in minority populations, could point to genes that drugs might target. It could also improve diagnosis and prevention. The pilot program helps new diabetes researchers generate early data.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Marguerite Irvin
University of Alabama at Birmingham, AL·Public Health & Epidemiology
Identify genetic variants that predict blood pressure response to chlorthalidone (a diuretic) or lisinopril (an ACE inhibitor) in more than 6,500 African Americans from the randomized GenHAT trial, with validation through the ICAPS consortium.
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.
Ryan D. Hernandez
University of California-San Francisco, CA·Genetics
Measure how race, ethnicity and genetic ancestry each contribute to molecular traits and to heart, lung, blood and sleep disorders, using TOPMed whole genome sequencing, RNA-seq gene expression and metabolomic data from over 180,000 people.
The school
Wake Forest University: 27 labs on PI Pages, $345M a year on research, 54 research doctorates a year.
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