Welcome to the Aye Team!

 Our Science

Welcome to the Aye Lab! Our business is understanding cellular communication processes. We are most well-known for our studies into signaling functions of innate electrophiles (reactive metabolites and related drugs), but we also study nucleotide signaling pathways. Our work is slowly bringing both eclectic forms of cellular communication into focus. Critically, we have proven that electrophile signaling impinges on all aspects of cellular processes, and we have uncovered hidden aspects of nucleotide signaling pathways that serve to guard the genome. We pioneered the use of photocaged electrophiles (REX technologies) to bypass many of the limitations associated with the use of reactive electrophiles in cells/whole organisms. These technologies that can trigger protein-specific electrophile-mediated signaling or can profile the best electrophile sensors are proving to be uniquely useful. We have also used biochemistry/cell biology/genetics to uncover novel roles of one of the most ancient enzymes, ribonucleotide reductase. Unsurprisingly, we are a multidisciplinary lab that uses chemistry, biochemistry, cell biology, genetics and a number of model organisms to solve complex problems. Our work is of significant relevance to human health. Through our united team effort, we strive to develop novel interventions, and to better understand current drugs through active collaborations with industrial scientists.

Reactive Metabolite Signaling, Genome Regulation, & Model Organism Engineering Biology

Our research arena

Beyond in vitro and cell-based mechanistic studies, we use more complex and biologically relevant systems, namely, C. elegans, zebrafish, and mice as our in vivo mechanistic models.

News & Announcements

2024 October

Oil on canvas, by OS-Localis-REX

The worm becomes the fabric for a tissue specific, physico-political map depicting protein reactivity to lipid-derived electrophiles. OS-Localis-REX, a method to inform on spatiotemporal reactivity of local proteomes, is now accepted in Cell. We thank all past and present team-member contributors and funding agencies that collectively made this work possible.

“Organ-specific electrophile responsivity mapping in live C. elegans”


Liu et al., Long and Aye 2024 Cell 


Highlight in Oxford Chem News and Pembroke College News

2024 October

2024 Klaus Grohe Prize in Drug Discovery

We are deeply honored to be recognized by the 2024 Klaus Grohe Prize for our laboratory's continued efforts and contributions toward precision  reactive small-molecule signaling investigations and how these innate regulatory mechanisms directly inform on precision therapeutic design & discovery. 

We thank the Klaus Grohe Foundation based at the German Chemical Society 


2024 October

The lab honored by an Academy of Medical Sciences Professorship award

We are grateful for the support from the Academy of Medical Sciences and the Department for Science, Innovation, & Technology UK.



2024 October

The lab received a Wolfson Fellowship from The Royal Society

We thank the Royal Society for the recognition and support of our team science. 



2024 July

Najia awarded a competitive International Education’s Scholar Rescue Fellowship!

We thank the support from the Scholars at Risk fellowship program.


2024 July

Kevin won a prestigious postdoctoral fellowship from the Human Frontier Science Program

We are grateful for the support from the HFSP.