Our Research

Our research is at the intersection of metabolomics, diet–microbiome–host interactions, and human health. We are driven by the challenge of decoding the “dark metabolome”—the thousands of uncharacterized chemical signals in the body that originate from diet, environment, and microbial activity. We investigate how the gut microbiome transforms dietary phytochemicals and xenobiotics into bioactive metabolites that regulate host physiology. The liver, as the primary organ exposed to these dietary and microbiome-derived metabolites, plays a central role in whole-body metabolic health. Our work uncovers how diet and microbiome activity shape liver function, liver cancer development, and responses to therapy, with the goal of enabling diet-, microbiome-, and metabolome-informed therapeutic strategies.