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M. Chen et al.
and mentor for the bioinformatics program joint by Univ. of Arkansas at Little Rock (UALR) and
Univ. of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS). He received the FDA award for outstanding
junior investigator (2012) and the NCTR scientific achievement award (2014) and the FDA scientific achievement award (2017). Currently, he co-chairs the FDA Liver Toxicity Working Group
since 2014 and is the book editor titled “Drug-induced Liver Toxicity” published by the Springer
in 2018. His primary research interests encompass drug-induced liver injury, drug safety, bioinformatics, and personalized medicine. He has authored or co-authored more than 90 original publications and book chapters.
Jieqiang Zhu is a ORISE fellow at NCTR. He earned his Ph.D. in Medicine Chemistry from Zhejiang University in China. His current interests focus on (1) development of prediction models for
drug-induced liver injury and (2) genome-based prediction model for breast cancer risk.
Kristin Ashby recently completed her MS in Bioinformatics from the University of Arkansas at
Little Rock and University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences. Her research has focused on integrating tools that predict drug-induced liver injury and evaluating predictive model parameters.
Leihong Wu is a staff fellow of the Division of Bioinformatics and Biostatistics at the US FDA’s
National Center for Toxicological Research (NCTR), where he currently focuses the research on
developing in silico predictive models for drug- and dietary supplement-associated hepatotoxicity. He developed MOA-DILI approach, which utilizes chemical structure information as well as
high content assay data to construct models to evaluate FDA-relevant drugs for liver toxicities.
He also helps work on the development of Liver Toxicity Knowledge Base (LTKB) to integrate
multiple resources, including (1) annotation data, (2) genomics data, (3) assay data, (4) chemical
information, etc. He received his Ph.D. degree in Pharmacology from Zhejiang University, China
in 2013 and was a postdoctoral fellow at NCTR from 2014 to 2017. He is author/co-author of 28
publications including 12 first author publications.
Zhichao Liu got his Ph.D. from Nankai University in China. He is currently a principal investigator at NCTR, FDA. Dr. Liu’s background is across Chemistry, Biology, and Computer Science.
In the past fifteen years, he led and took part in many cutting-edge projects from both industry
and academia. Specifically, he developed innovative approaches for in silico drug repositioning
framework to seek for novel opportunities for rare disease treatment development. The goals aim
at providing the standard in silico pipeline for drug repositioning and early drug safety detection
by retrieving, integrating, and organizing the information from chemical, biological, and clinical
spaces, which help industry to seek for the optimal route to accelerate the drug development efficacy from advanced regulatory sciences perspective. His interests also widely cover (1) development of flexible and integrative risk prediction systems for drug safety evaluation and (2) development and application of standard pipeline for genomic data (e.g., microarray/NGS) analysis for
drug safety and efficacy questions. Dr. Liu has published more than 60 papers in the prestigious
journals.
Ping Gong is a principal investigator with multidisciplinary expertise in environmental genomics,
bioinformatics, bioengineering, mechanistic and predictive toxicology, and molecular modeling.
He earned a Bachelor’s degree in Environmental Biology and Ecology from Peking University and
a Ph.D. in Environmental Toxicology from the Institute of Applied Ecology, Chinese Academy
of Sciences. He completed his postdoctoral studies in the Technology University of Berlin (TU
Berlin), Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU), and Biotechnology Research Institute of National Research Council of Canada. As a research biologist, he has led a number
of multi-year projects that have greatly improved the fundamental and mechanistic understanding underlying the observed toxicities of military unique and other environmental contaminants.
His current research interests focus on mode of action-guided predictive toxicology, genetic
variations-conferred herbicide resistance, epigenetics-driven transgenerational inheritance of phe-
M. Chen et al.
and mentor for the bioinformatics program joint by Univ. of Arkansas at Little Rock (UALR) and
Univ. of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS). He received the FDA award for outstanding
junior investigator (2012) and the NCTR scientific achievement award (2014) and the FDA scientific achievement award (2017). Currently, he co-chairs the FDA Liver Toxicity Working Group
since 2014 and is the book editor titled “Drug-induced Liver Toxicity” published by the Springer
in 2018. His primary research interests encompass drug-induced liver injury, drug safety, bioinformatics, and personalized medicine. He has authored or co-authored more than 90 original publications and book chapters.
Jieqiang Zhu is a ORISE fellow at NCTR. He earned his Ph.D. in Medicine Chemistry from Zhejiang University in China. His current interests focus on (1) development of prediction models for
drug-induced liver injury and (2) genome-based prediction model for breast cancer risk.
Kristin Ashby recently completed her MS in Bioinformatics from the University of Arkansas at
Little Rock and University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences. Her research has focused on integrating tools that predict drug-induced liver injury and evaluating predictive model parameters.
Leihong Wu is a staff fellow of the Division of Bioinformatics and Biostatistics at the US FDA’s
National Center for Toxicological Research (NCTR), where he currently focuses the research on
developing in silico predictive models for drug- and dietary supplement-associated hepatotoxicity. He developed MOA-DILI approach, which utilizes chemical structure information as well as
high content assay data to construct models to evaluate FDA-relevant drugs for liver toxicities.
He also helps work on the development of Liver Toxicity Knowledge Base (LTKB) to integrate
multiple resources, including (1) annotation data, (2) genomics data, (3) assay data, (4) chemical
information, etc. He received his Ph.D. degree in Pharmacology from Zhejiang University, China
in 2013 and was a postdoctoral fellow at NCTR from 2014 to 2017. He is author/co-author of 28
publications including 12 first author publications.
Zhichao Liu got his Ph.D. from Nankai University in China. He is currently a principal investigator at NCTR, FDA. Dr. Liu’s background is across Chemistry, Biology, and Computer Science.
In the past fifteen years, he led and took part in many cutting-edge projects from both industry
and academia. Specifically, he developed innovative approaches for in silico drug repositioning
framework to seek for novel opportunities for rare disease treatment development. The goals aim
at providing the standard in silico pipeline for drug repositioning and early drug safety detection
by retrieving, integrating, and organizing the information from chemical, biological, and clinical
spaces, which help industry to seek for the optimal route to accelerate the drug development efficacy from advanced regulatory sciences perspective. His interests also widely cover (1) development of flexible and integrative risk prediction systems for drug safety evaluation and (2) development and application of standard pipeline for genomic data (e.g., microarray/NGS) analysis for
drug safety and efficacy questions. Dr. Liu has published more than 60 papers in the prestigious
journals.
Ping Gong is a principal investigator with multidisciplinary expertise in environmental genomics,
bioinformatics, bioengineering, mechanistic and predictive toxicology, and molecular modeling.
He earned a Bachelor’s degree in Environmental Biology and Ecology from Peking University and
a Ph.D. in Environmental Toxicology from the Institute of Applied Ecology, Chinese Academy
of Sciences. He completed his postdoctoral studies in the Technology University of Berlin (TU
Berlin), Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU), and Biotechnology Research Institute of National Research Council of Canada. As a research biologist, he has led a number
of multi-year projects that have greatly improved the fundamental and mechanistic understanding underlying the observed toxicities of military unique and other environmental contaminants.
His current research interests focus on mode of action-guided predictive toxicology, genetic
variations-conferred herbicide resistance, epigenetics-driven transgenerational inheritance of phe-