Azad Alizada

Originally from Baku, Azerbaijan, I earned a BSc in Cell and Molecular Biology and an MSc in Molecular Genetics from the University of Toronto, Canada. My master’s research, conducted in Professor Michael Wilson’s lab, focused on cross-species comparative genomics—specifically investigating mammalian aortic endothelial cell responses to inflammatory stimuli via NF-κB signaling, where I performed ChIP-seq, ATAC-seq, and CRISPR/Cas9 experiments to identify and characterize conserved and species-specific pro-inflammatory regulatory elements within the genomes of endothelial cells isolated from human, mouse, and bovine aortas. In 2020, I moved to the UK to pursue a PhD in Medical Science in Professor Greg Hannon’s lab at the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Institute, University of Cambridge. My doctoral work investigated the functions of transcription factors and a unique class of small RNAs, piRNAs, in ovarian germ cell development and transposon silencing in Drosophila and across metazoan species, providing new insights into the transcriptional regulation of small RNA-based defense pathways that prevent transposon mobilization within animal ovaries, contribute to the host–transposon arms race, and drive their co-evolution. Currently, I am a Postdoctoral Research Scientist in Professor Paul Riley’s lab at the Institute of Developmental & Regenerative Medicine (IDRM), University of Oxford. My work, under the Oxford-Cambridge consortium CellTalkHHD, focuses on the comparative biology of cellular, molecular, and gene-regulatory mechanisms underlying heart development in vertebrate species, with the aim of deciphering cellular cross-talk between the epicardium, myocardium, and endocardium of the embryonic heart by utilizing genomics, stem cells, animal models, and genetic engineering tools.