Levels of Urinary Metabolites of Organophosphate Flame Retardants, TDCIPP, and TPHP, in Pregnant Women in Shanghai.

Liping Feng, MD's research has focused on understanding the mechanisms of pregnancy complications associated with placental development. These works are translated then to the clinical care of women through studies dedicated to identify risk factors and novel biomarkers for early prediction and prevention of adverse birth outcomes.

Dr. Feng devotes her entire career to improving pregnancy outcomes through innovative research. Dr. Feng conducts both basic science/laboratory research, as well as participates in clinical studies. Her laboratory has focused on understanding the mechanisms of placenta-originated pregnancy complications such as preeclampsia and still birth, which are important causes of perinatal and neonates’ mortality and morbidity. Currently, she has three lines of investigation focused on the roles of inflammation/infection, cell aging, and environmental exposure in placental development and subsequent pregnancy complications.

In addition, Dr. Feng has established an international collaboration in Global Women’s Health. She has affiliated with the Duke Global Health Institute (DGHI) and participates in a DGHI research. She has an interest in DGHI education, and service or policy initiatives, including mentoring and teaching graduate and professional students on fieldwork and research.

My research interest is in statistical genetics, including statistical method development and its application for understanding the genetic predisposition of human complex diseases. Here is the list of research topics:

• Statistical genetics: development of family-based association methods for quantitative traits with or without censoring and for detecting X-linked genes for disease risk.  With the availability of next generation sequencing data, we have ongoing projects to develop the association methods for testing rare variants for different phenotypic measures.  
• Genetics of Alzheimer's disease (AD) and Fuchs endothelial corneal dystrophy (FECD).
• Genetic basis of age-at-onset of Alzheimer disease. 
• Peri-operative genomic studies. Investigate the genetic risk factors for postoperative outcomes of patients underwent non-emergent coronary artery bypass grafting with cardiopulmonary bypass.

Dr. Zhang joined the Duke Faculty in fall 2013 from the University of Southern California where he had been a professor of environmental and global health and the director of Environmental and Biomarkers Analysis Laboratory since 2010. His prior positions include professor, department chair, and associate dean at the Rutgers School of Public Health. Dr. Zhang has more than 290 peer-reviewed publications. His work has been featured in major international media such as the Time, the New York Times, BBC, ABC, CBS, Yahoo News, etc. His early work on characterizing sources of non-methane greenhouse gases made him one of the officially recognized contributor to the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize awarded to IPCC. He is the 2012 recipient of the Jeremy Wesolowski Award, the highest award of the International Society of Exposure Science. He also received a Distinguished Alumni Award from the Rutgers Graduate School.

Dr. Zhang’s research interests include developing novel biomarkers of human exposure and health effects, assessing health and climate co-benefits of air pollution interventions, and examining biological mechanisms by which environmental exposures exert adverse health effects. Dr. Zhang has led a number of international collaborations to study air pollution health effects and underlying pathophysiologic mechanisms. These studies integrate epidemiological and toxicological approaches into natural experiment designs. He has conducted several indoor air purification intervention studies to evaluate the effectiveness of personal exposure reduction in improving health outcomes in China. Currently, he is conducting intervention trials of residential air purification in older adults with a heart disease history and adults at risk for Type 2 diabetes living in Los Angels where air pollution levels are high. He is co-leading a project to study whether and how particulate matter pollution affects respiratory viral infections in two cities of Mongolia.