Rate My Professor Ta-Chiang Liu

Ta-Chiang Liu, MD, PhD, AGAF, is a Professor of Pathology and Immunology within the Medicine faculty at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, serving as Associate Division Chief of the Anatomic and Molecular Pathology division. He specializes in gastrointestinal pathology. Liu received his MD from National Yang Ming University in Taipei, Taiwan, in 1997, and his PhD from Imperial College London, United Kingdom, in 2003. His training includes a research fellowship in neurosurgery at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School from 2004 to 2007, an anatomic pathology residency at Washington University School of Medicine in 2011, and a fellowship in gastrointestinal and liver pathology at Johns Hopkins University from 2011 to 2012. He holds appointments in multiple centers, including Siteman Cancer Center, Diabetes Research Center, and Brain Immunology & Glia Center.

Liu's research centers on the pathogenesis of inflammatory bowel disease, with a focus on the role of Paneth cells in Crohn’s disease. His laboratory examines molecular mechanisms by which genetic and environmental factors affect Paneth cell morphology, such as cytoplasmic antimicrobial granule patterns, and their clinical implications, alongside developing prognostic biomarkers. Additional research interests encompass molecular mechanisms of inflammatory bowel disease-associated colon cancer, graft-versus-host disease, and hepatobiliary and pancreatic neoplasms. He has earned the American Gastroenterological Association Fellow (AGAF) designation and received grants including the Innovator Award from the KR Foundation. Notable publications include "Virus-plus-susceptibility gene interaction determines Crohn's disease gene Atg16L1 phenotypes in intestine" (Cell, 2010); "Atg16L1 T300A variant decreases selective autophagy resulting in altered cytokine signaling and decreased antibacterial defense" (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2014); and "Genetics and pathogenesis of inflammatory bowel disease" (Annual Review of Pathology: Mechanisms of Disease, 2016). His contributions have advanced insights into genetic-environmental interactions in inflammatory bowel disease.