Najafov Lab

Ayaz Najafov, Ph.D.

Principal Investigator
Assistant Professor

Ayaz Najafov is an Assistant Professor at UT Southwestern Medical Center, Department of Internal Medicine. He holds a secondary appointment at the Children's Research Institute (CRI) and is affiliated with the Simmons Comprehensive Cancer Center. At the UT Southwestern Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, he is a faculty member of the Cell & Molecular Biology Graduate Program and the Cancer Biology Graduate Program.

Born in Baku, Azerbaijan, Ayaz is a biochemist and cell and molecular biologist by training. He earned his BSc and MSc in Molecular Biology and Genetics from Boğaziçi University (Bosphorus University) in Istanbul, Turkey, where he trained in the laboratory of Ahmet Koman and Necla Birgül-İyison. He received his PhD from the MRC Protein Phosphorylation Unit at the University of Dundee, Scotland, UK, in the laboratory of Dario Alessi, and completed postdoctoral training in the Department of Cell Biology at Harvard Medical School (Boston, MA, USA) in the laboratory of Junying Yuan.

Najafov Lab was established at UT Southwestern Medical Center in 2021.

Education and Training

Postdoctoral Training, Department of Cell Biology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA
Mentor: Professor Junying Yuan
• Identified a novel role of RIPK1 in glucose sensing by the AMPK-mTORC1 pathway (Najafov et al., 2021, Mol Cell).
• Delineated a molecular mechanism contributing to neonatal lethality of RIPK1-null mice (Najafov et al., 2021, Mol Cell).
• Identified the TAM kinases as the first oncogenes required for necroptosis (Najafov et al., 2019, Mol Cell).
• Discovered BRAF and AXL as the first drivers of cancer escape from necroptosis (Najafov et al., 2018, PLOS Biol).
• Independently, developed omics data analysis software (Najafov J and Najafov A, 2019, Bioinformatics; Najafov J and Najafov A, 2017, Sci Rep).
• Published 20 papers in total, during the postdoctoral period.

PhD in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, MRC Protein Phosphorylation Unit, University of Dundee, Scotland, UK
Mentor: Professor Dario Alessi
• Discovered that Akt phosphorylation by mTOR is key for its activation by PDK1 (Najafov et al., 2012, Biochem J).
• Characterized the first specific PDK1 inhibitor and identified a mechanism of cancer resistance to PDK1 inhibitors (Najafov et al., 2011, Biochem J).
• Performed SILAC phospho-proteomics screens and identified KIAA0802 as a target of the LKB1-MARK signaling.
• Independently, developed MassSpec data analysis software, which led to a PI-level Innovator of the Year award (2012).
• Published 6 papers in total, during the PhD period.

MSc in Molecular Biology and Genetics, Bosphorus University, Istanbul, Turkey, and Harvard Medical School
Mentors: Professor Ahmet Koman, Asst. Professor Necla Birgül-İyison, Professor Xi He
• Identified MENA, BRI, and HSF2 as targets of the Wnt/β-catenin signaling (Najafov et al., 2012, PLOS One).
• Published 2 papers in total, during the MSc period.

BSc in Molecular Biology and Genetics, Bosphorus University, Istanbul, Turkey
Mentors: Professor Esra Battaloğlu, Dr. İbrahim Barış
• Identified novel GDAP1 mutations in Charcot-Marie-Tooth hereditary neuropathy patients (Parman, 2004, Brain).
• Published 2 papers in total, during the BSc period.

Publications