Dr Nadire N. Ali

Dr. Nadire Ali is a Senior Research Fellow at National Heart and Lung Institute, Imperial College London. She obtained her PhD in Biochemistry from Institute of Dental Surgery, University of London in 1983, investigating the effects of prostaglandins and anticonvulsant drugs on bone resorption and formation in culture. She continued her studies in the Departments of Pathology, and Anatomy, at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital NHS Trust and University College London, respectively, where she worked on the establishment of the single osteoclast resorption assay which is in worldwide use. Further postdoctoral work involved studies of trasduction of physical stimulus (bone-loading) into biochemical signals (at Royal Veterinary College, London), characterisation of alkaline phosphatase isoenzymes in osteosarcoma-derived osteoblastic cells (at Imperial Cancer Research Fund, now Cancer Research UK) and study of reactive oxygen specie-related signaling (NFkappaB) in bone cells (at London Hospital Medical College).  

Prior to establishing the embryonic stem cell Laboratory at NHLI in 2003, for the differentiation, characterisation and use of cardiomyocytes in cell therapy & tissue engineering, and in drug toxicity assays, she spent three years at the Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine (TERM) Centre of Imperial College where she demonstrated alveolar type II cell formation from embryonic stem cells. Her current research interests include (1) generation and study of patient-specific iPS cells, (2) directed differentiation of human ES cells (and iPS cells) to specific subpopulations of cardiac cells, such as ventricular cells, pacemaker cells, and their purification by non-genetic means, (3) Optimisation of methods for cardiomyocyte generation from human ES cells.

Dr. Ali is a member of the BHF Center of Research Excellence and serves on Editorial Board of Stem Cells International.