University of Pittsburgh-Pittsburgh Campus · PharmacologyBeta-Catenin Lab
Kari N Nejak-Bowen · Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Research Focus
Dr. Kari Nejak-Bowen's lab at the University of Pittsburgh focuses on understanding cholestatic liver diseases, which are conditions where bile flow is impaired, leading to serious liver damage. The team studies the role of the protein beta-catenin in these diseases, using mouse models that mimic human conditions like primary sclerosing cholangitis (PSC) and progressive familial intrahepatic cholestasis (PFIC). Their research aims to uncover the mechanisms behind liver injury and find potential new therapies.
cholestatic liver diseasebeta-cateninprimary sclerosing cholangitisprogressive familial intrahepatic cholestasisfibrosiscell polarityepithelial-to-mesenchymal transitionmouse modelsTGF signalingtranscriptomics
Research Aims
3AIM 01Validate the relevance of the DKO1 and DKO2 mouse models to human liver diseases.
AIM 02Investigate the role of TGF signaling in cholestatic liver disease models.
AIM 03Determine the impact of beta-catenin deletion in cholangiocytes in Mdr2 KO mice.
Skills the Lab Values
mouse modelstissue staininggenotypingRNA extractionPCRWestern blottingtranscriptomic analysiscell culturehistologybiochemical assays
Output against the department
Publications100bottom 25% of dept.346th of 462
this lab
most publishedleast published
Citations2.7kbottom 19% of dept.372nd of 462
this lab
most citedleast cited
Career totals from OpenAlex, compared against labs that share a department. A department spans everything from one paper to tens of thousands, so bar heights are on a log scale — otherwise the largest lab would flatten every other bar to a line.