Speaker Details

Kif Liakath-Ali

Dr. Liakath-Ali is currently a Lecturer in Advanced Cell Biology at the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Southampton and the principal investigator at the Splice Lab. He completed his PhD in 2015 at the University of Cambridge under the supervision of Professor Fiona Watt. During his doctoral studies, he identified several genes involved in mouse skin structure and function. His work also led to the discovery of the importance of ribosome-rescue machinery in epidermal stem cell function.

In 2018, Dr. Liakath-Ali moved to Stanford University, where he worked as a postdoctoral researcher on the regulation of alternative splicing of genes encoding key synaptic molecules under the mentorship of Nobel Laureate Professor Thomas Südhof.

Dr Liakath-Ali’s lab is particularly interested in the cellular regulation of RNA splicing and its basic molecular mechanisms that could inform therapeutic discovery for spliceopathies, a group of diseases caused by splicing misregulation.

Dr. Liakath-Ali is an advocate of research rigor and reproducibility, passionate about mentoring, and committed to open science. He believes that equity and diversity, open communication, collaboration, and mutual respect not only foster creativity and innovation, essential for groundbreaking scientific discoveries, but also make the process of doing scienc more enjoyable.