education and training

University of North Carolina at Charlotte, NC
Wake Forest School of Medicine, Winston-Salem, NC
Wake Forest School of Medicine, Winston-Salem, NC

prior positions

Assistant Professor, Wake Forest School of Medicine, Winston-Salem, NC (2010-2016)

Research Focus

Genotyping
Sequencing
Transcriptomics
Metabolomics
Bioinformatics
Type 2 Diabetes
Obesity
Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease
Nephropathy and Transplantation
Aging
Cardiovascular Disease  

My research integrates genomics, metabolomics and bioinformatics to study the molecular architecture of common complex human diseases. We routinely use next generation sequencing, gene expression analysis, and mass spectrometry to profile cells and tissues from human patients and animal models to identify early molecular changes that happen in target tissues and organs during the initial development of diseases such as obesity, cardiovascular diseases, or dyslipidemias and fatty liver disease. Our group has been developing novel methodologies to functionally study human genome variation, and to help understand how mutations and sequence variants that have been identified in large scale genetic studies (e.g. genome-wide association studies) actually affect the normal function of cells. Work in our lab ranges from basic molecular biology to tissue culture, high-end sequencing and mass spectrometry, and computational data analysis