Ardie Barry Sailis

I study what inhaled toxicants do to the body, and specifically what e-cigarettes do to male reproductive health.

That means tracing a chain: an aerosol enters the lung, something in it reaches the bloodstream, and somewhere downstream a cell stops working the way it should. My doctoral research follows that chain through mitochondrial dysfunction, disrupted steroidogenesis in Leydig cells, microRNA regulation of testosterone signalling, and changes in blood cells. I also work on what secondhand aerosol exposure does to the lungs.

Alongside the thesis, I've been building something of my own. I call it Cellular Signalling as Dynamic Regulatory Circuits, and the argument is that we tend to describe signalling pathways as switches when they behave more like control systems, shaped by timing, phase-separated states, and how a cell integrates stress. Out of that came the redoxostat concept in NRF2–KEAP1 biology. Nobody asked me to write it, which is partly why I wanted to.

So far I've published thirteen peer-reviewed papers. I also review manuscripts for seven international journals, which has taught me as much about writing as writing has.

Some works on this website are independent scholarly projects outside of my doctoral thesis and institutional research. If you find them useful, you may support my work through ☕ Buy Me a Coffee