Advanced Science: Biosecurity Primitive: Polymerase X-based Genetic Physical Unclonable Functions (Pertsemlidis)

June 18, 2025

Zikun Zhou, Taek Kang, Jie Chen, Yesh Doctor, Jocelyn G Camposagrado, Yiorgos Makris, Alexander Pertsemlidis, Leonidas Bleris Abstract A Physical Unclonable Function (PUF) is a security primitive that exploits inherent variations in manufacturing protocols to generate unique, random-like identifiers. These identifiers are used for authentication and encryption purposes in hardware security applications in the semiconductor industry. Inspired by the success of silicon [...]

SLAS Discovery: The History, Landscape, and Outlook of Human Cell Line Authentication and Security (Pertsemlidis)

November 20, 2024

Elijah Harbut1,2,3 ∙ Yiorgos Makris4 ∙ Alexander Pertsemlidis5,6,7 ∙ Leonidas Bleris1,2,3 1 Introduction The phenomenon of cellular cross-contamination and misidentification (“CCCM”) was identified more than six decades ago and continues to pose significant challenges for laboratories globally. The prevalence of CCCM is alarmingly high, with estimates suggesting that up to 30% of cell lines may be misidentified, leading to substantial financial losses[2–4]. Accelerating progress in [...]

Nucleic Acids Research: TATDN2 resolution of R-loops is required for survival of BRCA1-mutant cancer cells (Sung, Gupta, Pertsemlidis, Bishop, et al)

November 29, 2023

Aruna S Jaiswal, Arijit Dutta, Gayathri Srinivasan, Yaxia Yuan, Daohong Zhou, Montaser Shaheen, Doraid T Sadideen, Austin Kirby, Elizabeth A Williamson, Yogesh K Gupta, Shaun K Olsen, Mingjiang Xu, Eva Loranc, Pramiti Mukhopadhyay, Alexander Pertsemlidis, Alexander J R Bishop, Patrick Sung, Jac A Nickoloff, Robert Hromas BRCA1-deficient cells have increased IRE1 RNase, which degrades multiple microRNAs. Reconstituting expression of one of these, miR-4638–5p, resulted in synthetic lethality in BRCA1-deficient cancer cells. We found that miR-4638-5p represses expression of [...]

Nucleic Acids Research: TATDN2 resolution of R-loops is required for survival of BRCA1-mutant cancer cells (Gupta, Pertsemlidis, Bishop, & Sung Labs)

November 20, 2023

Aruna S Jaiswal, Arijit Dutta, Gayathri Srinivasan, Yaxia Yuan, Daohong Zhou, Montaser Shaheen, Doraid T Sadideen, Austin Kirby, Elizabeth A Williamson, Yogesh K Gupta, Shaun K Olsen, Mingjiang Xu, Eva Loranc, Pramiti Mukhopadhyay, Alexander Pertsemlidis, Alexander J R Bishop, Patrick Sung, Jac A Nickoloff, Robert Hromas Abstract BRCA1-deficient cells have increased IRE1 RNase, which degrades multiple microRNAs. Reconstituting expression of one of these, miR-4638–5p, resulted in synthetic lethality in BRCA1-deficient cancer cells. We found that miR-4638-5p represses [...]

Pertsemlidis Lab Awarded American Lung Association Grant to Study “Identifying Exploitable Biomarkers of Lung Cancer Metastasis”

June 16, 2021

Abstract Rationale. Most cancer deaths are caused by metastatic disease, and the prevention of metastasis is a significant focus of clinical research. Aberrant expression of miRNAs has been found in all cancers, yielding insights into disease processes that would be difficult to detect by other methods and revealing fundamental therapeutic vulnerabilities. miRNAs have been shown […]



FASEB Journal: Identification of a novel mechanism for meso‐tetra (4‐carboxyphenyl) porphyrin (TCPP) uptake in cancer cells

February 25, 2021

            David J. Elzi,   William E. Bauta,  Jamila R. Sanchez,  Trisha Das, Shweta Mogare, Peter Zannes Fatland,  Moises Iza, Alexander Pertsemlidis,  Vivienne I. Rebel  Abstract Porphyrins are used for cancer diagnostic and therapeutic applications, but the mechanism of how porphyrins accumulate in cancer cells remains elusive. Knowledge of how porphyrins […]


MDPI: Synergism of Proneurogenic miRNAs Provides a More Effective Strategy to Target Glioma Stem Cells (Penalva & Pertsemlidis Labs)

January 14, 2021

Adam Kosti, Rodrigo Barreiro, Gabriela D. A. Guardia, Shiva Ostadrahimi, Erzsebet Kokovay, Alexander Pertsemlidis, Pedro A. F. Galante, Luiz O. F. Penalva Simple Summary miRNAs function as critical regulators of gene expression and have been defined as contributors to cancer phenotypes by acting as oncogenes or tumor suppressors. Based on these findings, miRNA-based therapies have been explored in the treatment of many […]


Nature Communications: Integrative transcriptome and chromatin landscape analysis reveals distinct epigenetic regulations in human memory B cells (Pertsemlidis)

November 16, 2020

Justin B. Moroney, Anusha Vasudev, Alexander Pertsemlidis, Hong Zan & Paolo Casali Abstract Memory B cells (MBCs) are long-lived and produce high-affinity, generally, class-switched antibodies. Here, we use a multiparameter approach involving CD27 to segregate naïve B cells (NBC), IgD+ unswitched (unsw)MBCs, and IgG+ or IgA+ class-switched (sw)MBCs from humans of different age, sex and race. Conserved antibody variable gene expression […]


Alexander Pertsemlidis, PhD Co-Awarded National Science Foundation Grant.

August 20, 2020

PI: Leonidas Bleris, PhD                       Co-PI: Alexander Pertsemlidis, PhD (UT Dallas)                                              (UT Health San Antonio) PROJECT SUMMARY Collaborative Research: Unraveling extracellular microRNA communication Overview: […]