Dajiang Liu

Dajiang Liu is a Distinguished Professor and Vice Chair for Research at Penn State College of Medicine. He holds appointments in the Department of Public Health Sciences (Biostatistics and Bioinformatics division), Department of Molecular and Precision Medicine, and contributes to the Institute for Personalized Medicine and Penn State Cancer Institute. His work intersects genetics, computational biology, and public health.

• Research Focus: Statistical genetics method development, complex trait analysis, functional genomics, and integrative approaches to autoimmune disease research.
• Methodological Contributions: Creator of widely-used tools RAREMETAL and RVTESTS for genetic association studies.

Key Research Applications: Lipid biology, cardiovascular disease, substance addiction, lupus, and X chromosome inactivation studies. His lab combines high-throughput sequencing with computational methods to address these complex traits.

Scientific Awards:

• Basic Science Career Mentor Award (2021)
• Outstanding Champion of Diversity in Research (2019)
• Outstanding Early-Stage Investigator Prize (2016)

Current Projects: Multi-omic COPD analysis in females, integrative autoimmune disease modeling, geospatial GWAS interpretation, and trans-ancestry lupus etiology studies. His work leverages biobanks, insurance claims, and genomic data.