Dr Ali Shilleh

Dr Ali Shilleh is Robert Turner Research Associate at Green Templeton College and Novo Nordisk Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Oxford Centre for Diabetes, Endocrinology and Metabolism (OCDEM), University of Oxford.

Ali is a proud Serbestinian, born in Serbia and raised in Ramallah, West Bank Palestine. In 2014, Ali recieved his BS in biochemistry at Umass Boston in Boston, MA and went on to complete an MS in Nutrition and Biomedicine at the Technical University of Munich in Munich, Germany under the supervision of Dr Henrietta Uhlenhaut’s lab at the Institute of Diabetes and Obesity at Helmholtz Zentrum. His thesis studied the role of TR2 and TR4, orphan hormone nuclear receptors, in glucose homeostasis and lipid metabolism.

Ali then worked as a research assistant for nine months at Dr Holger Russ’s Lab at the Barbara Davis centre, University of Colorado Anschutz Campus, and joined the same lab as a PhD student in 2017. His work at the Russ Lab focused on determining the fate of primary human beta cells and stem cell derived beta-like cells (sBC) upon transplantation. These studies were geared toward improving sBC survival in vivo and promote cell therapy for T1D treatment.

Recently, Ali joined the Hodsquad as a Novo Nordisk postdoctoral fellow to further understand GLP1R signaling in beta cells and explore the potential use of GL1R agonists for gene therapy applications for T2D diabetic patients.

In his free time he loves to ski (especially in Oxford), rock climb, hike, run, walk his dog and travel with his partner and daughter.