Taslim Al-Hilal, PhD

Academic Information

Departments College of Health , Associate Professor - Molecular Pharmaceutics

Academic Office Information

taslim.al-hilal@pharm.utah.edu

801-585-0070

Research Interests

Role of a prion-like protein Doppel in tumor microenvironment and progression
Role of tumor-coagulome in immunosuppression
Ovarian cancer modeling and heterogeneity
Cell-specific durotaxis in lung disease

Dr. Al-Hilal joined the College of Pharmacy as a joint tenure-track faculty between Molecular Pharmaceutics and Biomedical Engineering departments.

Dr. Al-Hilal obtained his PhD degree in 2014 from the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Seoul National University, South Korea. He then did postdoctoral training at Texas Tech and Mass General Hospital. In 2019 he started his independent faculty position at the University of Texas El-Passo in the Department of Pharmaceutical Science before moving to Utah.

Dr. Al-Hilal has published over 40 research articles. Current projects in his lab are focusing to understand: 1) Role of a prion-like protein Doppel in tumor microenvironment and progression; 2) Role of tumor-coagulome in immunosuppression; 3) Ovarian cancer disparity and heterogeneity using an ascitic-fluid derived organoid model; and 4) Cell-specific Durotaxis (cells movement up against stiffness gradient) in fibrotic lung diseases.

Education History

Graduate Training	Seoul National University	Masters of Pharmacy
Doctoral Training	Seoul National University	PhD, Pharmaceutical Sciences
Postdoctoral Training	Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center	Postdoctoral Research
Postdoctoral Training	Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard	Postdoctoral Research

Selected Publications

Journal Article

Karim M, Hasan MM, Kim SH, Azam Z, Wahab R, Islam T, Alam F, Kim Y-J, Bae D-J, Roy S, Grippo P, Bishehsari F, Choi JU, Al-Hilal TA (2025) Stromal Fibrin Shapes Immune Infiltration Landscape of Pancreatic Ductal Adenocarcinoma. Biomaterials, 320:123280.
Al-Hilal TA, Chrysovergi M-A, Grasberger PE, Liu F, Auernheimer V, Zhou Y, Xiao Z, Leon-Duque MA, Santos A, Islam T, Ligorio M, Sicard D, Probst CK, Vrbanac V, Reddi TS, Vincent L, Happe C, Chaum E, Yates CR, Daneshvar K, Mullen AC, Ting D, White ES, Kalluri R, Woo CM, Puré E, Goldmann WH, Alonso JL, Tager AM, Engler AJ, Tschumperlin DJ and Lagares D (2025) Durotaxis is a driver and therapeutic target in organ fibrosis and metastatic cancer. Nature Cell Biology, Sep;27(9):1543-1554. # Equal Contributions.
Wahab R, Keshavarz A, Azam Z, Islam T, Hasan MM, Zhang X, Alobaida A, Rana M, Choi JU, Alam F, Kim I-S, Byun Y, Nickel NP, Roy S, Al-Hilal TA (2025) Transcriptomic Profiling of Microfluidic-Captured Patient-Derived Circulating Endothelial Cells Identifies Novel Genes of Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension Linked to BMPR2-Signaling Pathways. Biomaterials, 323:123429.
More Selected Publications