Principal Investigator

Yimon Aye was born and raised in Burma and is a naturalized American citizen. She received a full scholarship to attend Cambridge Tutors College, UK (high school equivalent), and subsequently read chemistry at Somerville College, University of Oxford, UK, as an international student scholar (2000-2004). Her undergraduate research was carried out with Prof. Stephen L. Buchwald (MIT, USA) and Prof. Stephen G. Davies (Oxford University, UK). She then moved to Harvard University, USA, achieving a Ph.D. in organic chemistry under the guidance of Prof. David A. Evans. She subsequently moved to MIT (USA) to research the cellular and biochemical regulatory mechanisms of the enzyme ribonucleotide reductase with Prof. JoAnne Stubbe. In her independent career at Cornell University that began in mid-2012, she set out to understand the detailed mechanisms of electrophile signaling. This impetus culminated in the development of “REX” technologies (T-REX™ delivery and G-REX™ profiling). In a parallel research program distinct from redox-dependent cell signaling, she studies proteins/pathways involved in mammalian genome maintenance and nucleotide signaling, including the mechanisms of anticancer agents in clinical use. From 2018 to mid-2024, she led the Laboratory of Electrophiles And Genome Operation at EPFL (Switzerland) as a tenured associate professor, during which time her laboratory introduced Localis-REX, function-guided proximity mapping of local proteome druggability. In Fall 2024, Aye returned to Oxford Department of Chemistry, where she leads an interdisciplinary research team as a professor of chemistry & chemical biology. 

Aye was an Associate Editor of ACS Chemical Biology (2022-2024) prior to her ongoing role as Editor-in-Chief of Current Opinion in Chemical Biology. 

For a representative list of international honors and contributions made, both in the US and Europe by Aye and her team members, please visit Awards and Highlights.