This spring, Professor Jonathan Liu received an R01 grant from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to develop computational 3D pathology methods for Barrett’s esophagus risk stratification.
The award is $3.65 million over five years. The grant will fund clinical studies using archived tissues from patients with the condition.
After learning how Liu’s team had previously invented 3D pathology methods to assess prostate cancer risk, Deepti Reddi, assistant professor in laboratory medicine and pathology at UW Medicine, contacted him about gastrointestinal applications of his technologies, including for evaluating esophageal cancer risk in patients with Barrett’s esophagus. Liu, who had a history of gastrointestinal cancer research as a postdoctoral researcher at Stanford and later as a junior investigator, was excited to get back to tackling gastrointestinal problems. Besides Reddi, other collaborators include William Grady, professor at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center; and Faisal Mahmood, associate professor of pathology at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital of Harvard Medical School.
