AW LAB
Welcome to the Aw Lab website!
Located at the the IMCB, A*STAR, Singapore, we are molecular engineers who utilise RNA as building blocks to develop translational technologies for disease diagnosis, biotechnology and therapeutics.
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To do this, we take a cross-disciplinary approach, combining RNA biology, genetics, biochemistry and computational analysis, collaborating closely with other molecular biologists, computer scientists, chemists, and neuroscientists.​
We are currently hiring Postdoctoral Research Fellows and Research Officers to work on funded projects related to RNA technologies, RNA delivery and RNA therapeutics. If you have a passion for RNA technologies and therapeutics and are interested in joining our team, please email Sherry.
RESEARCH
RNA TECHNOLOGIES FOR DIAGNOSTICS AND THERAPEUTICS
Besides functioning in gene regulation and disease pathways, RNAs are also biomarkers and indicators of cellular states. We are developing novel RNA sensors to sense and transduce RNA signals, which can aid research into novel aspects of RNA biology and contribute to the development of RNA-based diagnostics, gene regulatory technologies and therapeutics.
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SELECTED PUBLICATIONS
​Mandy Yu-Theng Lim#, Chermaine Tan#, Charannya Sozheesvari Subhramanyam#, Shi Jie Teo, Louis de Falco Jr, Samuel Kevin Pasaribu, Chong Hui Koh, Dheeraj Rayamajhi, Jieying Chi, Shengnan Li, Dave Wee, Sudipto Roy, Roland Huber and Sherry Shiying Aw* (2026)
A programmable ribozyme for RNA signal transduction
Nature Communications doi: 10.1038/s41467-025-68175-5 (view)
#Equal contribution
Aw, S.*&, Tang, XM., Teo, YN*, Cohen, SM. (2016)
A conformation-induced fluorescence method for microRNA detection.
Nucleic Acids Research 44 (10): e92, doi: 10.1093/nar/gkw108 (view)
*Corresponding &Lead contact
MICRORNAS IN DISEASE
MicroRNAs, a class of short, non-coding RNA involved in gene regulation, carry out important functions in many biological systems and are implicated in disease. Through functional screens of miRNA mutants using quantitative phenotyping, and molecular and biochemical characterization of conserved miRNA regulatory pathways, we aim to understand how defects in miRNA biology can lead to diseases like neurodegeneration, tremor and movement disorder.
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I) Tremor
Essential Tremor (ET) is the most common movement disorder, with a high familial risk. The rare risk variants that have been identified account for a small fraction of disease risk, indicating that key causative genes remain to be discovered. We have identified a neuronal population whose function is required to prevent tremor in the fly, and are working to understand their normal function and dysregulation in disease.
II) MicroRNAs and movement disorders
One class of genes that we are interested in are microRNAs, and the targets that they regulate to protect against movement disorder.
SELECTED PUBLICATIONS
Shuang Wu, Kah Junn Tan, Lakshmi Narasimhan Govindarajan, James Charles Stewart, Lin Gu, Joses Wei Hao Ho, Malvika Katarya, Boon Hui Wong, Eng King Tan, Daiqin Li, Adam Claridge-Chang, Camilo Libedinsky, Li Cheng* and Sherry Shiying Aw*&
Fully automated leg tracking of Drosophila neurodegeneration models reveals distinct conserved movement signatures.
PLOS Biology (2019) 17(6) (View)
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Animesh Banerjee, Moumita Chatterjee#, Kah Junn Tan#, Shermaine Tay, Kaibo Duan, Anand Kumar Andiappan, Shanshan Wu Howland, Yoshinori Aso, Sherry Shiying Aw* (2025)
GABAergic neuronal dysfunction underlies tremor in a Drosophila model of Spinocerebellar ataxia 3
Disease Models and Mechanisms doi: https://doi.org/10.1242/dmm.052329 (View)
#Equal contribution
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*Corresponding &Lead contact
NEWS FROM THE LAB
2026-01-16 We have an open Joint A*STAR - King’s College London PhD studentship position, apply here
2025-12-16 Congrats to Charannya for being awarded a Career Development Fund Award (her proposal was ranked in the top two!)
2025-12-22 Mandy, Charannya and Chermaine's paper has been accepted at Nature Communications!
2025-12-01 Sherry was awarded a Cell And Gene Therapy Flagship Seed Grant for new ribozymes (Lead PI)
2025-11-14 Samuel's paper has been submitted
2025-11-01 Sherry was awarded a Cell And Gene Therapy Flagship Seed Grant for RNA delivery (Lead PI)
2025-10-28 Sherry was awarded a National Research Foundation Competitive Research Program (NRF-CRP) Award (Lead PI)
2025-08-28 Animesh's paper has been accepted at Disease Models and Mechanisms!
2025-08-21 Chermaine wins USD$1000 for her project at the Twist Pitch Competition
2025-08-09 Chermaine's commentary has been accepted at Molecular Therapy Nucleic Acids!
2025-07-16 Samuel was shortlisted for Best Poster at SCGT 2025
2025-05-16 Chermaine selected to give an oral presentation at CSHL RNA Tx
2025-05-06 Chermaine was selected as one of three A*STAR nominees for the Schmidt Science Fellowship
2025-01-28 Sherry is Team PI of an awarded NATi-N01 grant for RNA delivery
2025-01-07 Sherry gives a talk at the Gordon Research Conference (GRC) in RNA Nanotechnology
2025-01-06 Chermaine was nominated to co-Chair the next Gordon Research Seminars in RNA Nanotechnology
2024-11-29 Sherry was invited to give a talk at the 47th Annual Meeting of the Molecular Biology Society of Japan
2024-11-28 Chermaine wins Honorable Mention in Twist Gene-ius competition
2024-11-26 Samuel wins IMCB's Go The Extra Mile GEM Award
2024-10-09 Wilson has been granted an A*GA scholarship
2024-08-05 Animesh's co-authored paper published in Current Biology
2024-07-20 Chermaine wins Best Poster at SCGT 2024
2024-01-23 Chermaine presents her poster at the Keystone Symposium in Precision Genome Engineering
2023-04-03 Chermaine passed her PQE!
2022-09-15 Jie Ying has been awarded an A*GA PhD scholarship
2022-03-24 Chermaine has been awarded an A*GA PhD scholarship to do her PhD in the lab!
2022-02-28 Shi Jie is Asian Scientist Lab Tech of the Year - Mountain Mover 2021!
2020-12-14 Mandy received a Career Development Award
2020-12-07 Sherry was awarded a National Medical Research Council Open Fund Individual Research Grant (OF-IRG) to study tremor (Lead PI)
CURRENT
FUNDING
2026 - 2030
National Research Foundation
Competitive Research Programme Award (CRP32)
Lead PI, $7.7M
Dec 2025 - Dec 2026
A*STAR Cell and Gene Therapy Flagship Grant
Lead PI, $500K
Nov 2025 - Nov 2026
A*STAR Cell and Gene Therapy Flagship Grant
Lead PI, $500K
Apr 2025 - March 2027
Nucleic Acids Therapeutics Initiative (NATi) Grant
Co-I, $220K
Jan 2021 - Jan 2026
NMRC - Open Fund Individual Research Grant (OF-IRG)
Lead PI, $1.5M
