Expertise
My research at the Miami Project to Cure Paralysis focuses on understanding the signaling pathways that regulate axon growth, and identifying components of those pathways that can be targeted with drugs to induce robust axon regeneration.
Dr. Al-Ali is primarily interested in drug discovery. He is developing a new platform technology that enables rapid and efficient identification of drug targets that are likely to produce high efficacy in patients. The technology also identifies off-targets that must be avoided due to possible adverse effects (for example, these off-targets would counteract the activity of the drug on the cancer, or would even cause the cancer to proliferate rather than arrest/apoptose). By identifying both effective targets that must be engaged by a drug AND off-targets that must remain un-engaged, highly efficacious drugs can be discovered and developed.