Hosted by Irina Bochkis, Sayeepriyadarshini "Sayee" Anakk, is an Assistant Professor of Molecular and Integrative Physiology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL

The Annak Lab focuses on understanding liver metabolism in normal and diseased state. It's goal is to investigate how bile acids and nuclear receptors maintain metabolic homeostasis, and contribute to liver diseases, including cancer using cell-based systems and genetically engineered mouse models.

Liver is a major organ that regulates metabolism of triglycerides, cholesterol, glucose, amino acids, heme, xenobiotics and many more substances. One of the salient features of the liver is to make bile! Bile acids are amphiphilic detergents synthesized in liver to facilitate absorption of dietary lipids. Biliary homeostasis is critical and defects/dysfunctions in this pathway lead to several liver diseases including liver cancer.