Areas of Interest
Dr. Litkowski is interested in researching the relationship between diabetes and dementia. In her PhD work, using the epidemiological technique of Mendelian randomization, she found evidence of causality between diabetes and dementia in the Million Veteran Program among patients with European and African ancestry. In her postdoctoral research in the Kaczorowski Lab in the Neurology department, she is searching for the causal mechanism of the diabetes-dementia link using a diverse mouse panel of Alzheimer’s Disease (the AD-BXD). She is using a forward genetics approach to examine the relationship between glucose metabolism and cognitive impairment in gene by diet and drug intervention studies with a goal of therapeutically relevant targets.
Honors & Awards
- Michigan Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center, Research Education Component Trainee (2023-2025)
- T32 Multidisciplinary Training Program in Basic Diabetes Research (2023-2024)
- E.Litkowski,et al., Evidence of causality between type 2 diabetes and dementia in the Million Veteran Program; Abstract/Program 3896. Presented at the 71st Annual Meeting of The American Society of Human Genetics, October 18, 2021, Virtual, “Reviewers’ Choice” for top 10% of abstracts.
Credentials
- Ph.D., Genetic Epidemiology, University of Colorado Anschutz (2022)
- M.S., Biostatistics, University of Colorado Anschutz (2018)
- MBA, University of Maryland, College Park (1985)
- B.S., Mathematics/Computer Science (1979)
Published Articles or Reviews
- Litkowski EM, Logue MW, Zhang R, et al. Mendelian randomization study of diabetes and dementia in the Million Veteran Program. Alzheimers Dement. Published online July 7, 2023. doi:10.1002/alz.13373
- Litkowski EM, Logue MW, Zhang R, et al. A Diabetes Genetic Risk Score Is Associated With All-Cause Dementia and Clinically Diagnosed Vascular Dementia in the Million Veteran Program. Diabetes Care. 2022;45(11):2544-2552. doi:10.2337/dc22-0105
- Vu T, Litkowski EM, Liu W, Pratte KA, Lange L, Bowler RP, et al. NetSHy: network summarization via a hybrid approach leveraging topological properties. Bioinformatics. 2023 Jan 1;39(1):btac818.
- Stanislawski MA, Litkowski E, Raghavan S, et al. Genetic Risk Score for Type 2 Diabetes and Traits Related to Glucose-Insulin Homeostasis in Youth: The Exploring Perinatal Outcomes Among Children (EPOCH) Study. Diabetes Care. Published online July 13, 2021. doi:10.2337/dc21-0464