For Adam, and for all of us

Her work

Sobia's professional life was defined by a rare combination of clinical excellence, research leadership, and genuine compassion for patients facing complex liver disease. This page preserves her talks, writing, and the work she built — so her family, and especially Adam, can hear her and see what she made.

Roles & leadership

Staff Gastroenterologist & Transplant Hepatologist, Cleveland Clinic
Director, Multidisciplinary MASLD Center
Chair, MASLD Task Force
Assistant Professor, Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine

In her voice, and on the record

Videos, papers, and posts — preserved here, with a link to the original whenever one exists.

Hear her

Talks and interviews so Adam can one day hear his mother teach. Each one is summarized here; the original is linked in case it remains online.

Butts & Guts, with Scott Steele, MD

Fatty Liver Disease — Butts & Guts

Cleveland Clinic podcast

Sobia explains MASLD in plain language — why the name changed, how fat in the liver leads to MASH and fibrosis, and what patients can do. She also tells a little of her own path: growing up between Pakistan and England, then training at Cleveland Clinic and Mayo.

I'm essentially from Pakistan, but I did most of my growing up and training in England, because that's where my father was getting his medical training from. Then had a short stint in Pakistan. And then about 10 years ago, moved to the US for my medical training. And I'm actually a product of the clinic itself. So, I did my residency and my advanced fellowship here and then my GI training at Mayo Clinic. But happy to come back here and it's been phenomenal.

Watch and read the full archive Watch the original on Cleveland Clinic

MedPage Today, Peer-to-Peer Videos

In MASLD, How Can Spatial Genomics Improve Understanding of the Disease?

February 19, 2025

Sobia, as chair of Cleveland Clinic’s MASLD Task Force, explains spatial genomics: mapping where genes act in the liver, how cells interact as disease progresses, and where new treatments might halt or reverse fibrosis.

It's these specific microenvironments that we really have to study to understand where can we develop therapeutic targets to halt fibrosis and then allow for fibrosis regression.

Watch and read the full archive Watch the original on MedPage Today

HCPLive, with Abigail Brooks, MA

Metabolic Surgery’s Benefit for MASH-Related Cirrhosis

February 5, 2025

Sobia talks through the SPECCIAL study: in patients with obesity and compensated MASH cirrhosis, metabolic surgery was tied to a 72% lower risk of major adverse liver outcomes and an 80% lower risk of decompensation.

What our findings revealed was a 72% lower risk of incident MALOs and an 80% lower risk of hepatic decompensation in the surgical group, which are staggering numbers to see.

Watch and read the full archive Watch the original on HCPLive

Cleveland Clinic, moderated by Arjun Chatterjee, MD

MASLD with Dr. Sobia Laique — The Medicine Grand Rounders

November 14, 2023

A teaching conversation on the new steatotic liver disease names, how to diagnose and risk-stratify MASLD, and how internists, endocrinologists, and hepatologists should work together. Her answers are preserved on the original page.

Watch or read the original on Cleveland Clinic

Live from Cleveland Clinic

Can MASH Be Surgically Cured? — ConsultQD Live

May 13, 2026

Sobia presented “What is MASH? Why it matters and how treatment paradigms are evolving,” alongside colleagues including Ali Aminian, MD, on metabolic surgery for MASH.

View the original session

Publications & writing

Papers and articles she wrote or helped lead. We keep a record here because journals and news pages move; the original link is always included.

Cleveland Clinic · Intercontinental Hotel, Cleveland

Multidisciplinary MASH Conference

August 14–15, 2026

Sobia served as Activity Director with Ali Aminian, MD — advancing multidisciplinary care across the MASH spectrum. The conference took place after her passing; colleagues honored her there, and kept her name on the program as director.

We took a moment to honor her and recognize how much she contributed to making this conference possible. Her presence was truly felt, and we’re very grateful for everything she did.

See the photos and tribute View the conference faculty

Consult QD, Cleveland Clinic

MASH-Cirrhosis and Obesity: Transforming Care with Shared Medical Appointments

January 6, 2026

Describes the shared medical appointment program she piloted in March 2025 for patients with compensated MASH cirrhosis and obesity — nutrition, exercise, and behavioral health in one visit, so weight loss does not cost patients their muscle.

We cannot simply prescribe a medication and walk away. Without safeguards, there is a legitimate risk of muscle wasting, or sarcopenia, which is already a significant predictor of poor outcomes in cirrhosis. We must ensure patients are losing fat mass, not lean muscle.

Read the original on Consult QD

Digestive Diseases and Sciences

MASLD Clinical Trials: Increasing Enrollment, Diversity and Generalizability

July 12, 2026

Her paper on why MASLD trials must include the communities most affected by the disease — including Hispanic patients at higher risk of progression — so new treatments are tested in the people who need them.

View the original (DOI)

Nature Medicine

Long-term liver outcomes after metabolic surgery in compensated cirrhosis due to MASH

2025

A Cleveland Clinic study of metabolic surgery in compensated MASH cirrhosis. Sobia was a co-author, working with Ali Aminian, MD, and colleagues.

View the original in Nature Medicine

Gastrointestinal Endoscopy

Application of OCR with NLP for large-scale quality metric data extraction in colonoscopy reports

2020

Early informatics work extracting quality metrics from colonoscopy reports — a sign of how she thought about systems, not only individual patients.

View the original (DOI)

Her posts

LinkedIn, X, and other writing in her own name. Send any post and it will be copied here with a link back to the original.

None archived yet. When a link is sent, it will appear here.

Something missing? If you know of a talk, paper, interview, or post that isn't here yet, please send Omar the link.

Clinical & research focus

Metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD/MASH)
MASH-related cirrhosis
Post-transplant cardiometabolic complications
Multidisciplinary liver disease care

Highlights

MASLD Task Force

Co-founded and led an initiative fostering collaboration across specialties — endocrinology, primary care, bariatric surgery, and transplant surgery — to develop best practices and research for MASLD screening, management, and patient outcomes.

FLAMES Trial

Contributed to the Fibrosis Lessens After Metabolic Surgery (FLAMES) trial, a multicenter international randomized controlled trial comparing surgical and medical therapies for advanced metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis.

Research & Publications

Published and contributed to work in hepatology, liver transplantation, and metabolic liver disease. She was a sought-after expert voice on emerging treatments and clinical approaches, including contributions to Healio and the Cleveland Clinic Journal of Medicine.

Mentorship

Known by trainees and colleagues as an exceptional mentor — someone who made people feel seen, valued, and capable of doing meaningful work in a field she cared about deeply.