Correction to: Identifying Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease Advanced Fibrosis in the Veterans Health Administration.

Beth Gifford is a research professor in the Sanford School of Public Policy, a core faculty member of the Center for Child and Family Policy and the Margolis Center for Health Policy. She leads a multidisciplinary research team that examines the health and social services engagement of children and families. Motivating her research is the need to understand how social policies and practices can better support children and families. Her work spans many public institutions including education, social services, criminal justice, and health care systems. She is the Director of the Health Policy Certificate Program and the Health Policy and Innovation Theme Leader for Bass Connections.

My research interests focus on the study of chronic liver disease and primary liver cancer, particularly from metabolic dysfunction associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD), formerly called nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD).  As part of the MASLD Research Team at Duke, we are investigating the role of environmental contaminants, epigenetics, and genetics on the development of advanced fibrosis and liver cancer from MASLD and other chronic liver diseases.  We are also interested in understanding risks for progressive liver disease including developmental programming and in utero exposures and have been investigating these risks through studies of the Newborn Epigenetics Study (NEST).  The long term goal of our research is to develop non-invasive biomarkers to identify those patients at increased risk for cirrhosis and end stage liver disease in order to risk stratify patients as well as to develop better preventative and therapeutic strategies.

Hepatic stellate cell biology; Hepatic Fibrogenesis; Liver regeneration