Joe Lim is the Drug Metabolism and Disposition Highlighted Trainee Author for the April 2022 issue. He is a PhD student at the University of Washington in the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences. His mentor is Dr. Julia Yue Cui. The DMD article that earned his selection as a Highlighted Trainee Author is titled “PXR and the Gut-Liver Axis: A Recent Update” and is available at https://doi.org/10.1124/dmd.121.000415.
Mr. Lim’s area of research centers around understanding non-communicable disease outcomes following early life exposure to environmental toxicants, with a focus on the contribution of the gut-liver axis in this process. His recent findings showed that early life exposure to polybrominated diphenyl ethers, a class of flame retardants, epigenetically reprogram the liver epigenome, possibly through the disruption of the gut microbiome. He developed methods to quantify and assess different hepatic cell populations and their gene expression signatures and has been applying these methods to investigate the interplay between the gut and liver in persistent dysfunctions of the liver from early life exposure to toxicants.
The anticipated impact of his work will be to help prevent the initial exposures and come up with potential treatment options.
Outside the lab, Joe enjoys cooking, cycling, and spending time with family.