Judy Liu

Liu earned a Bachelor of Science at Yale University. She moved to New York for her graduate studies, and completed a PhD and MD at Albert Einstein College of Medicine. After her MD she completed a medical internship in internal medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. She was appointed as a neurological resident at Beth Israel in 2001.

Liu studies epilepsy which arises from focal cortical dysplasia.[1] She investigates the surgically removed tissues and found that they are influenced by circadian rhythm. The protein CLOCK (Circadian Locomotor Output Cycles Kaput) is a transcription factor that is important in regulating circadian rhythm in the suprachiasmatic nucleus.[2] Liu analysed the transcriptome of surgically removed tissues and found differences in the RNA of CLOCK.[3] They created mouse models, one with neurons defunct in CLOCK and the other with neurons lacking inhibitory cells.[3] The mice without limited CLOCK suffered from epilepsy similar to humans.[3] In 2017 she was awarded a Citizens United for Research in Epilepsy award to study the molecular CLOCK and sleep-associated seizures.[4] She contributed to the 2012 book Jasper's Basic Mechanisms of the Epilepsies.[5]

She was awarded the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation NASRAD Young Investigator Award and a Whitehall Foundation grant to study the cell biology that underlies the development of axons.[6][7] In 2013 she was awarded a grant to study the molecular mechanisms that prevent the initiation of seizures.[8] The grant looks to identify the changes in mRNA and microRNA in people who suffer from cortical dysplasia and tuberous sclerosis.[8]