Katherine Phoenix Liao, MD, MPH

Katherine Liao, MD, MPH

Associate Professor of Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital
Associate Professor of Biomedical Informatics, Harvard Medical School (Secondary)

Brigham and Women's Hospital Rheumatology - PBB-B3 75 Francis St Boston, MA

Katherine Liao is a clinical investigator and practicing rheumatologist. The mission of her lab her lab is two-fold: (1) is to study rheumatoid arthritis (RA), and the clinical and genetic factors that lead to outcomes such as cardiovascular disease and severe joint damage, and (2) is to apply and develop bioinformatics methods to utilize big data for clinical and translational research studies. Liao’s research focuses on applying methods such as natural language processing to electronic medical record (EMR) data to perform clinical studies in RA and other conditions. Heart disease is the leading cause of death in patients with RA. This high risk has been attributed to inflammation, which is an important risk factor for heart disease in the general population. Determining these links can identify strategies to reduce CV risk in RA, as well as lead to potential targets of treatment in the general population. Liao is the PI of the R01 funded study, Lipids, Inflammation and CV risk in RA (LiiRA). The goal of LiiRA is to investigate how inflammation may modify important traditional cardiovascular risk factors such as cholesterol and blood pressure, and the impact of these modifications on CV risk. She is also a co-investigator on an NIH U01 multi-center RCT, Treatment Against RA and Effect on FDG PET CT (TARGET). TARGET specifically tests the hypothesis that reducing inflammation, reduces vascular inflammation and CV risk in RA. In line with her research interests, Liao is co-Director of the Cardiovascular Rheumatology Clinic at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Through her work with the Informatics for Integrating Biology and the Bedside (i2b2) project, Liao led the team to develop an EMR research platform for RA studies. This platform integrated clinical and biomarker data (e.g. clinical EMR data, genetics, autoantibody data) allowing for both traditional genetic association studies as well as new approaches for data analyses such as the Phenome Wide Association Study (PheWAS). Using this platform, she collaborates closely with investigators from the fields of biostatistics and bioinformatics to apply novel methods to study focused clinical questions such as CVD in RA. Currently, she is leading a pilot project to port and further develop these methods at VA Boston Healthcare using nationwide VA data with a goal to establish an EMR research platform at the VA.

Rheumatology Informatics System for Effectiveness: A National Informatics-Enabled Registry for Quality Improvement.
Authors: Yazdany J, Bansback N, Clowse M, Collier D, Law K, Liao KP, Michaud K, Morgan EM, Oates JC, Orozco C, Reimold A, Simard JF, Myslinski R, Kazi S.
Arthritis Care Res (Hoboken)
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Estimation and testing for multiple regulation of multivariate mixed outcomes.
Authors: Agniel D, Liao KP, Cai T.
Biometrics
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Cardiovascular Outcomes Associated with Lowering Low-density Lipoprotein Cholesterol in Rheumatoid Arthritis and Matched Nonrheumatoid Arthritis.
Authors: An J, Alemao E, Reynolds K, Kawabata H, Solomon DH, Liao KP, Niu F, Cheetham TC.
J Rheumatol
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Statin Use Is Associated With Reduced Risk of Colorectal Cancer in Patients With Inflammatory Bowel Diseases.
Authors: Ananthakrishnan AN, Cagan A, Cai T, Gainer VS, Shaw SY, Churchill S, Karlson EW, Murphy SN, Liao KP, Kohane I.
Clin Gastroenterol Hepatol
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Rheumatoid Arthritis and Mortality Among Women During 36 Years of Prospective Follow-Up: Results From the Nurses' Health Study.
Authors: Sparks JA, Chang SC, Liao KP, Lu B, Fine AR, Solomon DH, Costenbader KH, Karlson EW.
Arthritis Care Res (Hoboken)
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Cardiovascular risk factor management in patients with RA compared to matched non-RA patients.
Authors: Alemao E, Cawston H, Bourhis F, Al M, Rutten-van Mölken MP, Liao KP, Solomon DH.
Rheumatology (Oxford)
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Tumor Necrosis Factor-a Inhibitor Use and the Risk of Incident Hypertension in Patients with Rheumatoid Arthritis.
Authors: Desai RJ, Solomon DH, Schneeweiss S, Danaei G, Liao KP, Kim SC.
Epidemiology
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Traditional Cardiovascular Disease Risk Factor Management in Rheumatoid Arthritis Compared to Matched Nonrheumatoid Arthritis in a US Managed Care Setting.
Authors: An J, Cheetham TC, Reynolds K, Alemao E, Kawabata H, Liao KP, Solomon DH.
Arthritis Care Res (Hoboken)
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Comparative Effectiveness of Infliximab and Adalimumab in Crohn's Disease and Ulcerative Colitis.
Authors: Ananthakrishnan AN, Cagan A, Cai T, Gainer VS, Shaw SY, Savova G, Churchill S, Karlson EW, Kohane I, Liao KP, Murphy SN.
Inflamm Bowel Dis
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Identification of Nonresponse to Treatment Using Narrative Data in an Electronic Health Record Inflammatory Bowel Disease Cohort.
Authors: Ananthakrishnan AN, Cagan A, Cai T, Gainer VS, Shaw SY, Savova G, Churchill S, Karlson EW, Murphy SN, Liao KP, Kohane I.
Inflamm Bowel Dis
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