Peter Y. Liu, MD, PhD

Dr. Liu brings deep expertise in endocrine network physiology, metabolic pathways, and sleep and circadian physiology. He has extensive experience with methods to assess and enhance sleep health and circadian alignment. His research has been grounded in the development and application of mathematical models of endocrine physiology, as well as advanced statistical methods to analyze human experiments and clinical trials, including subject-level meta-analyses.

His current research includes sleep genomics projects within the MESA cohort and other populations, including a recent study identifying metabolomic profiles of sleep-disordered breathing and their associations with hypertension and the development of diabetes mellitus (Nat Commun. 2024;15(1):1845). This work introduced the use of metabolite risk scores, analogous to polygenic risk scores, and employed advanced mathematical deconvolution techniques to characterize pulsatile hormone patterns essential for endocrine signaling.

In earlier work, Dr. Liu and collaborators demonstrated through a dual-hormone clamp study that cortisol and testosterone are the primary pathways through which sleep restriction induces insulin resistance, a central factor in the development of type 2 diabetes mellitus (J Clin Endocrinol Metab. 2021). These findings highlighted key hormonal mechanisms linking sleep loss to metabolic dysfunction.

Dr. Liu’s research is distinguished by hands-on implementation of a wide range of investigative tools and methodologies, including sleep interventions that modify sleep duration and architecture; chronobiological protocols such as shift work scheduling and constant routine designs; polysomnography and automated EEG analysis to evaluate sleep stages; and actigraphy for real-world sleep measurement. His analytical approaches span cosinor, entropy, and mathematical deconvolution analyses, alongside traditional statistical modeling. He has also led endocrine intervention studies involving hormone clamping, blockade, and administration, integrated within rigorous experimental frameworks that include randomization and sham controls.

Dr. Peter Liu is a clinically active physician-scientist, board certified in Endocrinology, Diabetes, and Metabolism. His clinical and research interests focus on cardiometabolic health and disease, particularly how these are influenced by hormonal changes, sleep, and circadian biology. His work has resulted in over 100 peer-reviewed original research publications, 25 review articles, and 33 book chapters, with more than 11,000 citations and an H-index of 53.

Dr. Liu has a long-standing track record in multidisciplinary research and has been actively involved in large, multi–principal investigator (multi-PI) projects. He served as a co-PI on a National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Program Grant in Australia, titled “Center for Clinical Research Excellence in Interdisciplinary Sleep Health,” and has led substantial clinical research initiatives both in Australia and the United States that have resulted in numerous high-impact publications.

Recognizing the broader applicability of this skill set, Dr. Liu recently joined the Genomics Institute at The Lundquist Institute, following five years as an affiliate member. Within the Genomics Institute, Dr. Liu collaborates closely with fellow investigators, including Drs. Jerome Rotter, Kent Taylor, and Xiuqing Guo, as part of a highly integrated and team-based research environment. He is well-positioned to lead the sleep and circadian theme due to his expertise in endocrine and metabolic physiology, experience in developing and applying mathematical and statistical methodologies in human research, and leadership in international and national scientific organizations as well as in collaborative projects.