Ayaz Najafov, Ph.D.

Ayaz Najafov, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Internal Medicine at UT Southwestern Medical Center. He has a secondary appointment in the Children’s Medical Center Research Institute at UT Southwestern.

Dr. Najafov holds a bachelor's degree and a master's degree in molecular biology and genetics from Bosphorus University in Istanbul, Turkey. He earned his doctoral degree at the University of Dundee in Scotland. He completed postdoctoral training in cell biology at Harvard Medical School in Boston.

Dr. Najafov joined the UT Southwestern faculty in 2021.

Dr. Najafov is a member of the American Association for Cancer Research, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology.

• Anti-tumor immunity
• Cancer
• Immunogenic cell death
• Immunotherapy
• Necroptosis signaling

Featured Publications

RIPK1 Promotes Energy Sensing by the mTORC1 Pathway.

Najafov A, Luu HS, Mookhtiar AK, Mifflin L, Xia HG, Amin PP, Ordureau A, Wang H, Yuan J, Mol Cell 2021 01 81 2 370-385.e7

TAM Kinases Promote Necroptosis by Regulating Oligomerization of MLKL.

Najafov A, Mookhtiar AK, Luu HS, Ordureau A, Pan H, Amin PP, Li Y, Lu Q, Yuan J, Mol Cell 2019 08 75 3 457-468.e4

GECO: gene expression correlation analysis after genetic algorithm-driven deconvolution.

Najafov J, Najafov A, Bioinformatics 2019 01 35 1 156-159

BRAF and AXL oncogenes drive RIPK3 expression loss in cancer.

Najafov A, Zervantonakis IK, Mookhtiar AK, Greninger P, March RJ, Egan RK, Luu HS, Stover DG, Matulonis UA, Benes CH, Yuan J, PLoS Biol 2018 08 16 8 e2005756

CrossCheck: an open-source web tool for high-throughput screen data analysis.

Najafov J, Najafov A, Sci Rep 2017 07 7 1 5855

Necroptosis and Cancer.

Najafov A, Chen H, Yuan J, Trends Cancer 2017 04 3 4 294-301

ARIH1 signaling promotes anti-tumor immunity by targeting PD-L1 for proteasomal degradation.

Wu Y, Zhang C, Liu X, He Z, Shan B, Zeng Q, Zhao Q, Zhu H, Liao H, Cen X, Xu X, Zhang M, Hou T, Wang Z, Yan H, Yang S, Sun Y, Chen Y, Wu R, Xie T, Chen W, Najafov A, Ying S, Xia H, Nat Commun 2021 04 12 1 2346

Pharmacological targeting of MCL-1 promotes mitophagy and improves disease pathologies in an Alzheimer's disease mouse model.

Cen X, Chen Y, Xu X, Wu R, He F, Zhao Q, Sun Q, Yi C, Wu J, Najafov A, Xia H, Nat Commun 2020 11 11 1 5731

Modulating TRADD to restore cellular homeostasis and inhibit apoptosis.

Xu D, Zhao H, Jin M, Zhu H, Shan B, Geng J, Dziedzic SA, Amin P, Mifflin L, Naito MG, Najafov A, Xing J, Yan L, Liu J, Qin Y, Hu X, Wang H, Zhang M, Manuel VJ, Tan L, He Z, Sun ZJ, Lee VMY, Wagner G, Yuan J, Nature 2020 11 587 7832 133-138

Casein kinase-1?1 and 3 stimulate tumor necrosis factor-induced necroptosis through RIPK3.

Lee SY, Kim H, Li CM, Kang J, Najafov A, Jung M, Kang S, Wang S, Yuan J, Jung YK, Cell Death Dis 2019 12 10 12 923

 Featured Books

PCR Guru: An Ultimate Benchtop Reference for Molecular Biologists

Najafov A, Hoxhaj G (2016). Elsevier, Academic Press

Western Blotting Guru

Najafov A, Hoxhaj G (2017). Elsevier, Academic Press

• Science Signaling Editor’s Choice (Najafov et al., 2019, Mol Cell)
  (2019)
• Innovator of the Year Award, University of Dundee, Scotland, UK
  (2012)
• Selection of work by the Faculty of 1000 (Najafov et al., 2012, Biochem J)
  (2012)
• Best Poster, EMBO Young Scientist Forum
  (2008)
• Discovery PhD Scholarship, University of Dundee, Scotland, UK
  (2008)
• Graduated with MSc High Honors (“Summa Cum Laude”)
  (2008)
• Graduated with BSc Honors (“Magna Cum Laude”)
  (2006)
• Bronze Medal, 11th International Biology Olympiad
  (2000)