Biography

As a pediatric surgeon and a transplant surgeon, Dr. Tiao is involved in the care of children afflicted with biliary atresia from the time of presentation and diagnosis to the initial Kasai portoenterostomy to the liver transplant, when necessary. He sees the many challenges children and their families experience when diagnosed with this life threatening disease process. From that perspective, defining the basis of this disease process such that therapeutic strategies can be developed eliminating these complex interventions is his career goal. His short term goal is to develop an independent research laboratory investigating the pathogenesis of virus induced biliary atresia specifically seeking to determine the mechanistic basis of this disease so that new treatment strategies can be developed to salvage the native liver. 

Dr. Tiao's overarching hypothesis is that biliary atresia results from the infection of cholangiocytes by a virus triggering immune-mediated biliary obstruction. His focus is to determine the mechanisms used by RRV to infect cholangiocytes, how RRV undergoes replication within the cholangiocyte, and how infected cholangiocytes modify the microenvironment, activating the immune system resulting in biliary obstruction. Determination of the mechanistic basis of these inter-related events is essential to understanding the pathogenesis of virus induced BA. By focusing on the basis for the viral insult in the initiation of biliary atresia, he has defined an area of independence from Dr. Jorge Bezerra, his primary research mentor.