Amanda Ali

Henry Ford Health + Michigan State University Health Sciences

Shabana Amanda Ali is an Assistant Scientist/Professor at Henry Ford Health + Michigan State University Health Sciences. She earned a PhD in Medical Science at the University of Toronto and completed two Postdoctoral Fellowships. She now leads a research program aimed at elucidating biological mechanisms underlying chronic musculoskeletal conditions including osteoarthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, and chondrosarcoma. High-throughput approaches for genetic and epigenetic analyses are utilized, including next-generation sequencing and genome-wide association studies, for characterization of disease phenotypes and identification of novel factors mediating disease processes. The Ali lab established the Henry Ford Health Arthritis Biobank, a repository of hundreds of primary biospecimens from patients with osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis. Ongoing studies are primarily focused on investigating microRNAs as systemic and local factors that can be leveraged to improve patient care, hypothesizing that microRNAs can function as biomarkers, mechanistic drivers, and/or therapeutic targets.