Dr James Liu has been awarded a three-year Novo Nordisk Postdoctoral Research Fellowship to work with Professor Zhengming Chen (NDPH, CKB group, Oxford) and Dr. Joanna Howson (Novo Nordisk Research Centre Oxford). His research will focus on triangulating and investigating the proteomic profiles and mechanisms of type 2 diabetes applying various epidemiological approaches (e.g., genetic epidemiology methods, Mendelian randomisation (MR) analysis, traditional epidemiology methods) across diverse populations (e.g., UK population and Chinese population). This work should provide both public health and therapeutic insights on type 2 diabetes prevention and treatments.
James received medical training (preventive medicine) in Sun Yat-sen University, China (2010 - 2015). He completed a PhD in Epidemiology from The University of Hong Kong under the supervisions of Prof. Gabriel Leung, and Dr. C. Mary Schooling (2015 – 2019) examining the associations across birth weight, liver function, and type 2 diabetes/cardiovascular diseases. Prior to taking up his fellowship in Oxford, he worked as a senior research associate in the MRC/IEU, University of Bristol (2019 – 2022) mentored by Prof. Deborah Lawlor, Prof. Martin Rutter, and Prof. Jack Bowden investigating the effects of sleep disorders (e.g., lack of sleep, insomnia, evening chorotype) on type 2 diabetes risk with the use of MR methods.