Norah Terrault
University of Southern California, CA·Medicine & Clinical Research
Liver disease is now among the most common reasons Americans need a liver transplant. Two kinds dominate: liver damage from heavy drinking, and fatty liver disease linked to obesity and diabetes.
- Fields
Medicine & Clinical Research
Public Health & Epidemiology
- Topics
alcohol-associated liver disease
early liver transplantation
alcohol use disorder
- Grants
- 2 known grants, through Jul 2030
What they work on
- Examine how centers select patients with severe alcohol-associated liver disease for early liver transplantation, using selection-meeting recordings, checklists and clinician interviews to find sources of bias and unequal access.
- Develop risk scores that predict transplant-free survival and liver recompensation (spontaneous recovery with abstinence) in a cohort of 770 early transplant candidates followed for three years at nine centers.
- Identify effective medical and behavioral treatments for alcohol use disorder in patients with severe liver disease before and after early transplant, and track complications such as cancer, cardiovascular events and graft rejection.
- Complete long-term follow-up of adults and children with fatty liver disease (MASLD) and a 250-person vitamin E dose-ranging trial in the NASH Clinical Research Network.
- Test whether neighborhood-level social deprivation changes the effect of genetic risk variants such as PNPLA3 on fatty liver disease severity, using geospatial data and stored patient biospecimens.
More about the research
For both, doctors still lack good evidence on who should get a transplant, which treatments work, and how the disease will progress. This research uses large, long-term studies of patients at many hospitals to answer these questions. The patients' clinical data, tissue samples and imaging feed into future studies.
Why it matters
Results could help transplant centers choose early liver transplant candidates for alcohol-associated liver disease more fairly and accurately. They could also identify which alcohol use disorder treatments best prevent relapse and improve long-term health after transplant. For the roughly one in three U.S. adults with fatty liver disease (MASLD), the work could improve non-invasive diagnosis, prediction of disease course, and vitamin E dosing. It may also clarify how social environment interacts with genetic risk.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
David Goldberg
University of Miami, FL·Medicine & Clinical Research
Develop risk prediction models for transplant-free survival among patients with alcohol-associated liver disease who have limited access to transplant, to identify those most in need of early liver transplant referral.
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.
Xiaotao Zhang
Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, NY·Medicine & Clinical Research
Estimate recruitment, retention and diet adherence in adults with MASLD and F2–F3 fibrosis, verifying adherence with plasma pipecolic acid, a blood marker of bean intake, within a randomized crossover trial.
The school
University of Southern California: 47 labs on PI Pages, $1.3B a year on research, 882 research doctorates a year.
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