Profile
Professor Alexey V. Terskikh is a Future Health Research & Innovation Distinguished Fellow, Head of the Chromatin and Ageing Laboratory at the Harry Perkins Institute of Medical Research, and Professor at UWA Medical School at The University of Western Australia (UWA). He completed his PhD studies in molecular immunology at the University of Lausanne in 1997 and accomplished his postdoctoral studies in Irv Weissman’s laboratory at Stanford in 2002, where his research focused on studying genetic programs common among different types of stem cells.
Alexey established his research group at the Ecole Polytechnique Federal (EPFL) in Lausanne (2002). He later moved to The Burnam Institute in San Diego (2006), where he investigated epigenetic mechanisms of neurogenesis using adult mouse dentate gyrus and human-induced pluripotent stem cell models and identified novel approaches to Zika virus treatment and mechanism of viral propagation.
Alexey’s group discovered that patterns of epigenetic marks in the nucleus inform cellular identities and developed a novel technique: microscopic imaging of epigenetic landscapes (MIEL). Application of this technique to ageing, termed image-based chromatin and epigenetic age (ImAge), captures intrinsic age-related progressions (trajectories) of the spatial organisation of chromatin and epigenetic marks in single nuclei. ImAge represents the first-in-class imaging-based biomarker of ageing with true single-cell resolution.
Alexey joined the Harry Perkins Institute of Medical Research and the University of Western Australia as a Future Health Research & Innovations Fund Fellow and head of the Chromatin and Ageing Laboratory in 2024. His research at Perkins explores the crossroads of spatial chromatin organisation in single cells and the mechanisms of ageing using various computational approaches, including deep learning and hyperbolic embedding.
Selected Publications
Alvarez-Kuglen M, Ninomiya K, Qin H, Rodriguez D, Fiengo L, Farhy C, Hsu WM, Kirk B, Havas A, Feng GS, Roberts AJ, Anderson RM, Serrano M, Adams PD, Sharpee TO and Terskikh AV, Sept 2024, ImAge quantitates aging and rejuvenation. In: Nature Aging. 4, 9, p. 1308-1327 20 p.
Ninomiya K and Terskikh AV, Sept 2024, Imaging the epigenetic landscape in single cells to study aging trajectories. In: Nature Aging. 4, 9, p. 1184-1185 2 p.
Farhy C, Hariharan S, Ylanko J, Orozco L, Zeng F, Pass I, Ugarte F, Forsberg EC, Huang CT, Andrews DW, and Terskikh AV, Improving drug discovery using image-based multiparametric analysis of the epigenetic landscape. In: eLife. 8 (2019).
Shiryaev SA, Cieplak P, Cheltsov A, Liddington RC, and Terskikh AV, Dual Function Of Zika Virus NS2B-NS3 Protease. In: PLOS Pathogens. 2023 Nov 27;19(11): e1011795.
Shiryaev SA, Mesci P, Pinto A, Fernandes I, Sheets N, Shresta S, Farhy C, Huang CT, Strongin AY, Muotri AR and Terskikh AV. Repurposing of the anti-malaria drug chloroquine for Zika Virus treatment and prophylaxis. In: Scientific Reports. 2017;7(1):15771.
Amador-Arjona A, Cimadamore F, Huang CT, Wright R, Lewis S, Gage FH and Terskikh AV. SOX2 primes the epigenetic landscape in neural precursors enabling proper gene activation during hippocampal neurogenesis. In: Proceedings of the National Academy of Science USA. 2015 Apr 14;112(15):E1936-45.
Cimadamore F, Fishwick K, Giusto E, Gnedeva K, Cattarossi G, Miller A, Pluchino S, Brill LM, Bronner-Fraser M and Terskikh AV. Human ESC-derived neural crest model reveals a key role for SOX2 in sensory neurogenesis. In: Cell Stem Cell. 2011 May 6;8(5):538-51.
Amador-Arjona A, Elliott J, Miller A, Ginbey A, Pazour GJ, Enikolopov G, Roberts AJ and Terskikh AV. Primary cilia regulate proliferation of amplifying progenitors in adult hippocampus: implications for learning and memory. In: The Journal of Neuroscience. 2011;31(27):9933-9944
Terskikh AV, Easterday MC, Li L, Hood L, Kornblum HI, Geschwind DH and Weissman IL. From hematopoiesis to neuropoiesis: evidence of overlapping genetic programs. In: Proceedings from the National Academy of Sciences USA. 2001 Jul 3;98(14):7934
Terskikh A, Fradkov A, Ermakova G, Zaraisky A, Tan P, Kajava AV, Zhao X, Lukyanov S, Matz M, Kim S, Weissman I and Siebert P. Fluorescent timer: protein that changes color with time. In: Science. 2000 Nov 24;290(5496):1585-8.
