Alexei G Basnakian, MD, PhD, DSc

Research Program: Cancer Therapeutics Faculty Rank: Professor Campus: University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences College: College of Medicine Department: Pharmacology & Toxicology

Cancer Research Interest

• Disease Site Focus: Breast, Prostate, Melanoma
• Research Focus Area: Treatment, Diagnosis/ Prognosis, Carcinogenesis
• Type of Research: Basic, Translational
• Research Keywords: DNase, deoxyribonuclease, endonuclease, DNA fragmentation, cell death, apoptosis
• Research Interest Statement: Every mammalian cell contains several endogenous DNases aimed to protect itself from foreign DNA. Same DNases fragment host DNA after cell injury, prior, during and after cell death. Normal cells have high total activity of DNases, which makes them vulnerable to any cytotoxic insults, including chemo- and radiotherapy. Cancer cells, instead, have low activity of DNases, which promotes their survival in a hostile environment. We develop therapies to increase activity of DNases in cancer cells, and inhibit those in normal cells, therefore changing the balance toward better therapeutic efficacy of anticancer agents.

Contact Information

• Email Address: BASNAKIANALEXEIG@UAMS.EDU
• Profiles Research Networking Software: View Profile

Active Grants

• NIH/Nat. Inst. of General Medical Sciences – 2P20GM109005
  “Basnakian Subproject-Cellular and Molecular Toxicology Core”
  Principal Investigator
  8/17/2020 – 5/31/2025

Recent Publications

• Ferdous KU, Tesfay MZ, Cios A, [et al., including Basnakian AG]. Enhancing Neoadjuvant Virotherapy's Effectiveness by Targeting Stroma to Improve Resectability in Pancreatic Cancer. Biomedicines. 2024 12(7). PMID: 39062169. PMCID: PMC11275208.
• Garg S, Garg TK, Miousse IR, [et al., including Basnakian AG]. Effects of Gamma-Tocotrienol on Partial-Body Irradiation-Induced Intestinal Injury in a Nonhuman Primate Model. Antioxidants (Basel, Switzerland). 2022 11(10). PMID: 36290618. PMCID: PMC9598988.
• Nagalo BM, Zhou Y, Loeuillard EJ, [et al., including Basnakian A]. Characterization of Morreton virus as an oncolytic virotherapy platform for liver cancers. Hepatology (Baltimore, Md.). 2022. PMID: 36052732.
• Rezaei Cherati S, Anas M, Liu S, [et al., including Basnakian AG]. Comprehensive Risk Assessment of Carbon Nanotubes Used for Agricultural Applications. ACS nano. 2022. PMID: 35868016.
• Garg S, Garg TK, Wise SY, [et al., including Basnakian AG]. Effects of Gamma-Tocotrienol on Intestinal Injury in a GI-Specific Acute Radiation Syndrome Model in Nonhuman Primate. International journal of molecular sciences. 2022 23(9). PMID: 35563033. PMCID: PMC9100017.
• Zhang Y, Gabere M, Taylor MA, [et al., including Basnakian A]. Repurposing live attenuated trivalent MMR vaccine as cost-effective cancer immunotherapy. Frontiers in oncology. 2022 12:1042250. PMID: 36457491. PMCID: PMC9706410.
• Chambers SA, Newman M, Frangie MM, [et al., including Basnakian AG]. Antimelanoma activities of chimeric thiazole-androstenone derivatives. Royal Society open science. 2021 8(8):210395. PMID: 34430045. PMCID: PMC8355692.
• Hansa RK, Khan MMK, Frangie MM, [et al., including Basnakian AG]. 4-4-(Anilinomethyl)-3-[4-(trifluoromethyl)phenyl]-1H-pyrazol-1-ylbenzoic acid derivatives as potent anti-gram-positive bacterial agents. European journal of medicinal chemistry. 2021 219:113402. PMID: 33845234. PMCID: PMC8165011.
• Basnakian AG, Moore CL. Apoptotic DNase network: Mutual induction and cooperation among apoptotic endonucleases. Journal of cellular and molecular medicine. 2021 25(14):6496-6499. PMID: 34085765. PMCID: PMC8278086.
• Wang W, Li J, Tan J, [et al., including Basnakian AG]. Endonuclease G promotes autophagy by suppressing mTOR signaling and activating the DNA damage response. Nature communications. 2021 12(1):476. PMID: 33473107. PMCID: PMC7817833.
• Moore CL, Savenka AV, Basnakian AG. TUNEL Assay: A Powerful Tool for Kidney Injury Evaluation. International journal of molecular sciences. 2021 22(1). PMID: 33401733. PMCID: PMC7795088.
• Fahmi T, Wang X, Zhdanov DD, [et al., including Basnakian AG]. DNase I Induces Other Endonucleases in Kidney Tubular Epithelial Cells by Its DNA-Degrading Activity. International journal of molecular sciences. 2020 21(22). PMID: 33212932. PMCID: PMC7698339.
• Delancey E, Allison D, Kc HR, [et al., including Basnakian AG]. Synthesis of 4,4'-(4-Formyl-1H-pyrazole-1,3-diyl)dibenzoic Acid Derivatives as Narrow Spectrum Antibiotics for the Potential Treatment of Acinetobacter Baumannii Infections. Antibiotics (Basel, Switzerland). 2020 9(10). PMID: 32998384. PMCID: PMC7601628.
• Sadhukhan R, Leung JWC, Garg S, [et al., including Basnakian AG]. Fractionated radiation suppresses Kruppel-like factor 2 pathway to a greater extent than by single exposure to the same total dose. Scientific reports. 2020 10(1):7734. PMID: 32382091. PMCID: PMC7206069.