Amir Shlomai is an MD-PhD faculty member at the Sackler Faculty of Medicine of Tel-Aviv University, where he has been teaching since 2010. In July 2012, he joined Prof. Charles Rice’s lab at the Rockefeller University and was appointed Instructor in Clinical Investigation as a part of the institution’s Clinical Scholar Program. His research at Prof. Rice’s lab focuses on establishing a reliable infection system for the hepatitis B virus (HBV), an essential tool for resolving fundamental questions regarding HBV pathobiology, such as the unusual persistence of the viral genome in liver cells and the identity of the viral receptor, to name just a few.

Amir graduated the Hebrew University-Hadassah Medical School in 2001/2002. After a year of rotating internship at the Hadassah Medical Center in Jerusalem, he moved to Prof. Yosef Shaul’s laboratory at the Weizmann Institute of Science.

For the next eighteen months, his research focused on the molecular biology of the hepatitis B virus. More specifically, he was the first to demonstrate that the then newly-discovered RNA interference phenomenon could be used as an efficient anti-hepatitis B virus tool. This research was published in Hepatology and became the basis for Amir’s MSc thesis. His MSc was awarded by the Feinberg Graduate School of the Weizmann Institute and was completed with distinction.In 2005, Amir took a hiatus from his residency in Internal Medicine and returned to Prof. Shaul’s lab at the Weizmann Institute. In his PhD research, Amir discovered a unique link between metabolic processes that occur in the liver, such as glucose and fat synthesis and utilization, and hepatitis B virus gene expression and replication. Prof. Shaul’s lab demonstrated that HBV expression is significantly influenced by metabolic and nutritional cues that mediate major hepatic metabolic processes and elucidated the molecular mechanisms behind this link. These findings were published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America  and were cited by the Science journal in the Editor’s Choice section.

After receiving his PhD, Amir returned to his clinical duties. By 2012, he had completed his residencies in Internal Medicine (Hadassah and Tel-Aviv Sourasky Medical Centers) and in gastroenterology and liver diseases (Tel-Aviv Sourasky Medical Center). At this point, he established his own lab, continuing his research on hepatitis B and hepatitis C viruses. His group is currently investigating the life cycle and the virus-host interactions of the hepatitis B and hepatitis C viruses. The research emphasizes metabolic processes that take place in the liver and their mutual interactions with these hepatotrophic viruses.

Amir is certified to practice medicine in Israel and is Israeli-board certified in Internal Medicine and in Gastroenterology and Liver diseases. He is also certified by the Educational Commission for Foreign Medical Graduates  and holds a limited permit to practice medicine in the State of New York.