Shadi Abu-Hayyeh

Pregnancy is associated with maternal dyslipidemia. Specifically, plasma cholesterol, fatty acid and triglyceride levels are increased. This phenomenon is thought to be an important physiological response to pregnancy to 1) support the nutritional demand of the developing fetus and 2) fulfil the maternal requirement for lipids that are used to produce pregnancy hormones.

Metabolic alterations in pregnancy are important in the context of disease, as we have shown that abnormal bile acid and lipid metabolism during gestation can contribute to the bile acid disease of pregnancy, intrahepatic cholestasis of pregnancy and additionally increase susceptibility to dyslipidemia in the offspring of hypercholanemic/dyslipidemic pregnant mothers (Abu-Hayyeh et al., 2013; Papacleovoulou et al., 2013).

As such, I am interested in identifying the signals that both drive and sustain the metabolic changes associated with pregnancy, particularly in metabolically active tissues such as the liver and adipose tissue, using a range of in vivo and in vitro techniques.

• Senior Research Associate, King’s College London, 2013
• Postdoctoral Research Associate, Imperial College London, 2005-2012
• Research Scientist and London Business School Technology Transfer Fellow, UCL and LBS, 2004-2005
• Management Consultant, Accenture, 2002-2004
• PhD, Imperial College London, 2002
• MSc, Imperial College London, 1997
• BSc Molecular Biology (2i), King’s College London, 1996