Jalal Taneera

Scientist at Lund University

• Sweden
• My current job since January 2000

I have a PhD degree (2007- Lund University) in medical science (experimental endocrinology). My topic was to investigate the ability of adult bone marrow stem cell to differentiate into endothelial and pancreatic beta cells. Later on and beside my research activities, I worked as the head of the human islets facility at Lund University Diabetes Center. My responsibilities were to serve as a contact between transplantation surgeons, the human islet isolation facility in Uppsala and end user scientists, to distribute human islets and other tissues and DNA/RNA from such tissues to evaluated research projects within LUDC, to characterize islet preparation function e.g. by hormone secretion assays, to perform global analysis of gene expression and gene-wide association studies (GWAS) and to administrate the donor’s clinical data into our database. By now this facility is globally one of the best characterized resources for human pancreatic islets, and it has had and continues to have great impact of the quantity and quality of publications from LUDC.
In 2010 I started my current employment as a research scientist with Prof. Leif Groop at the department of Diabetes and Endocrinology, LUDC. In my research I focused on genetic profiling of human pancreatic islets and the identification of novel genes that contribute to Type 2 diabetes etiopathogenesis.
At first, we were able to profile -aminobutyric acid (GABA) signaling and the cell cycle genes in human islets from diabetic and non-diabetic donors to identify differentially expressed genes (Taneera et al Diabetologia 2012 and Mol. and Cell. Endocrinol 2013). We were also to show that INS-IGF2, the product of one of these genes as an autoantigen in human pancreatic islets (Kanatsuna et al J. Bio Chem 2013). Further, using a systems genetics approach we identified four novel candidate genes conferring risk for T2D which have recently been published in a high impact factor journal (Taneera et al, Cell Metabol 2012). Recently, using novel approach based on expression patterns, we identified another novel 4 genes for glucose metabolism that effect insulin secretion and glycemia (Taneera et al Hum. Mol. Genet 2014).
Also, I have been in involving at least 16 publications on the last 3 years in high ranked journals such as Nature and Cell Metabolism. My research has been also recognized by mainstream media outlets, including Science daily magazine (http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/09/120903142955.htm) and Alrabyia website http://www.alarabiya.net/articles/2013/02/06/264841.html, in addition to some other local news agency. Also, I have been presenting my work at several prestigious, internationally recognized scientific conferences (see CV). Finally, I have been selected as the best young research on diabetes among all Scandinavian countries, 2013, Helsinki, Finland.
During my scientific career, I have expanded my knowledge in genetics of diabetes, bioinformatic methods such as microarray gene expression analysis, SNP-array, genes co-expression and protein-protein interaction, culture/handling of human and mouse pancreatic islets and cell lines, hormone secretion assay and siRNA silencing of genes of interest in pancreatic islets. I have teaching experience from teaching medical students as a lab instructor in medical physiology (haemostatis) as well as part time lecturer in immunology. Also, I have supervised three master’s students and co-supervising one PhD student.
I am available for an interview scheduled at your convenience. I may be reached at the phone, mobile or email. Thank you for your time and your consideration.
Sincerely,
Jalal Taneera, PhD