The main focus of Dr. Halsted’s research is the regulation of alcoholic liver injury by hepatic methionine metabolism. Previous work established the mechanisms for folate absorption from the intestine, including characterization of a novel enzyme glutamate carboxypeptidase, as well the effects of alcoholism on folate metabolism in humans and animal models. Over the past 20 years, his laboratory established a pig model for alcoholic liver disease and demonstrated that chronic ethanol feeding reduces folate absorption and liver levels while inducing abnormal folate dependent methionine metabolism and liver injury. Most recent studies in an ethanol fed mouse model show that abnormal methionine metabolism alters the epigenetic control of genes that result in liver injury.
