His research focuses on statistical genetics, the genetics of addiction and the functional biology of X chromosome inactivation. He has developed many methods for sequence-based association analysis. His methods and tools have been broadly applied in numerous large scale high profile studies for lipid levels, smoking addictions, diabetes etc. Dr. Liu currently co-leads the GWAS and Sequencing Consortia of Alcohol and Nicotine Addiction. He is the principal investigator on multiple NIH grants, including an R01 grant on statistical genetic methods development for sequence data and an R21 grant on the genetics of nicotine addiction. He is very interested in working with colleagues, students and postdocs in these directions.