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Ayling was born in Hampshire, England, initially intending to become a veterinarian. At age 20, however, she boarded a cargo ship as a passenger to Australia. There, she worked for the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), an Australian government agency responsible for scientific research. After hitchhiking and hiking through Tasmania and New Zealand, she continued her travels, stopping next in San Francisco. She was bitten by the biochemistry bug while working for Ernest Kun, M.D., in the pharmacology department of the University of California, San Francisco. She earned her bachelor’s degree in genetics at the University of California, Berkeley. In 1966, she obtained her doctorate in biochemistry at UC Berkeley under Esmond Snell, Ph.D., the preeminent investigator of vitamin B6 mechanism, and who also first isolated and named the vitamin folic acid. Her postdoctoral work was with Feodor Lynen, Nobel-Prize-winning biochemist at the Max Planck Institute in Munich, Germany.
Ayling started her teaching career in 1969 in the biological chemistry department in the UCLA School of Medicine. She initiated a lifelong string of experiments on the pteridine cofactors tetrahydrobiopterin and tetrahydrofolate, which are central to neurotransmitter production and one-carbon metabolism. She moved as associate professor to teach biochemistry in the Life Sciences Division of University of Texas at San Antonio. Finally, in 1981 she was recruited to the pharmacology department at the University of South Alabama by Charles Baugh, Ph.D., who himself was a widely recognized folate biochemist.
During many of her years at USA, Ayling ran one of the highest funded laboratories in the College of Medicine. Over her career she has advised and mentored more than 60 postdoctoral, graduate, undergraduate and medical students. Her 76 publications are all in top journals in the fields of biochemistry, nutrition, chemistry and general sciences including The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
Key findings of her work include the first recognition that synthetic folic acid, which does not occur significantly in fresh natural foods, is not the optimal folate to meet human needs. Instead, the natural folates, such as 5-methyl-tetrahydrofolate (5-MTHF), have superior properties. This has led to improved treatments for the reduction of stroke risk and certain forms of depression. 5-MTHF is now used in place of folic acid in most leading prenatal vitamins. 5-MTHF also shows promise in reducing the risk of folate-related birth defects (e.g. spina bifida and heart defects) even when administered after conception. Ayling’s lab has also revealed that folate may play an important role, perhaps second only to pigmentation, in protecting DNA in skin from damage by ultraviolet light (a major cause of skin cancer). This may lead to new types of sunscreens.
She filed more than 13 U.S. patents in addition to a large number of foreign patents, the vast majority being granted. The licensing revenues from these considerably benefitted the College of Medicine and enabled the start of the USA Technology Transfer Office.
Those who knew her will remember both her independence and her desire to promote the common good within the University of South Alabama.
