Juliane I Beier, PhD

Biography

Dr. Juliane I. Beier is an Assistant Professor at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine in the Department of Medicine with a secondary appointment in the Graduate School of Public Health. She is a member of both the Pittsburgh Liver Research Center and the UPMC Hillman Cancer Center.
Dr. Beier's research focuses on the interaction between environmental toxicants and metabolic liver diseases. Her work on vinyl chloride has contributed significantly to our understanding of how environmental chemicals can modify liver disease risk, particularly in the context of fatty liver disease and cancer. Her laboratory has demonstrated that even low-level exposures to vinyl chloride can exacerbate underlying liver conditions and accelerate carcinogenesis.
As principal investigator on her R01 grant "Vinyl chloride modifies the risk for nonalcoholic fatty liver disease," Dr. Beier also serves as MPI on an R21 focused on the East Palestine Community-Engaged Environmental Exposure, Health Data, and Biospecimen Bank. Additionally, she leads a Pitt Momentum Fund Scaling grant for the "Rust to Resilience" project, helping to build a stronger research program around environmental health in the region.
Dr. Beier has published over 50 peer-reviewed articles, including original research and invited reviews in high-impact journals, with a current h-index of 30. She has also authored multiple book chapters on hepatotoxicity and has been recognized with multiple President's Choice Awards from the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases. Her expertise was nationally recognized following the East Palestine train derailment, where she provided insights on vinyl chloride's health effects in numerous media appearances.
She currently serves as President of the Society of Toxicology's Mechanisms Specialty Section and continues to advance the field in understanding how environmental exposures impact liver health.