Gil Leibowitz, M.D.
Tel: 972 2 67767951
Fax: 972 2 6437940
e-mail: gleib@hadassah.org.il

Dr. Gil Leibowitz is a graduate of the Hadassah-Hebrew University Medical School in Jerusalem, Israel. After training in Internal Medicine and Endocrinology & Metabolism, Dr. Leibowitz trained in Cell Biology and Molecular Biology at UC San Diego dealing with problems related to ex vivo gene therapy in diabetes. His main research interests are the regulation of insulin gene transcription, proinsulin biosynthesis and processing in normal pancreatic islets and animal models of type 2 diabetes. In recent years the focus of his research is on the role of the transcription factor PDX-1 in b-cell dysfunction in type 2 diabetes. In addition, he is interested in the regulation of growth and differentiation in the human endocrine pancreas with the ultimate goal to develop cell therapy strategies for the treatment of type 1 and type 2 diabetes. The focus of this research is to increase the number of differentiated endocrine precursors from human embryonic stem cells using different growth and differentiation factors and to select pure b-cell precursor cell lines to overcome the problem of limited tissue supply for transplantation. Dr. Leibowitz is an author in 40 publications and chapters in books. He is currently a lecturer and a senior physician in Internal Medicine and in the Endocrinology & Metabolism Service. He is the head of the committee of Diabetes Clinical practice in Hadassah and he is a member of the Hadassah Diabetes Center.