Peter Ly

Excited to share our latest paper, out today @CellCellPress. We found that large pieces of the human genome can transfer between cells upon direct contact, endowing recipient cells with heritable phenotypic changes. (1/7) cell.com/cell/fulltext/…

This work was led by postdoc Rashmi Dahiya in close collaboration with the Cortés-Ciriano lab (@isidrolauscher @IanthevanBelzen) and UTSW Kidney Cancer Program (@KCPUTSW). We are grateful to the DoD Academy of Kidney Cancer Investigators for supporting this research. 🙏

Chromosome loss is detrimental to cellular fitness, yet can be an early event in cancer. How can a deleterious genomic alteration initiate tumorigenesis? 🤔 Our latest preprint tackles this paradox using clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC) as a model. biorxiv.org/content/10.648…

🧵 New paper alert! Today on bioRxiv, we show how a microtubule (MT) associated protein, MTCL1, links 2 regulatory layers: mechanical MT stabilization and writing of then tubulin code. A multi-lab effort driven by @Juanmabertoldi1 and Julie Dang spanning atoms to organisms. 1/n

Excited to share our Review in @NatureCellBio with my student @DohunKim96 ! We highlight how nucleotide metabolism is dynamically regulated in physiology and how disruption of this control contributes to human disease. nature.com/articles/s4155…

Hear from our UTSW postdocs, faculty, and university leaders about our Postdoctoral Scholars Program #postdocs @utswpda @UTSWScience youtu.be/w5u9MHIC77Q?si… via @YouTube

Congratulations to Arindam Datta @arindam_datta1 on publication of “The BRCA1-A complex restricts replication fork reversal-dependent DNA repair in ATM deficient cells”. nature.com/articles/s4146…

Join us this fall for the 2026 FASEB Aneuploidy Conference! Learn about exciting science in chromosome biology, genome stability, development, and cancer + plenty of trainee talks and career development sessions. @FASEBorg #ANESRC Abstracts due August 3! events.faseb.org/event/Aneuploi…

Very excited to share our new Nature study! We discovered that replication stress stabilizes CTCF-dependent chromatin loops enclosing stressed nascent DNA, where G9a-mediated heterochromatin protects it from nucleolytic degradation. #citeas" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">nature.com/articles/s4158…

Sharing a new paper from the lab: How do ecDNAs segregate during cancer cell division? ecDNA lacks a centromere and needs to attach to mitotic chromosomes to be distributed to daughter cells. The question is: HOW? nature.com/articles/s4155… -1/x

1/ Excited to share our new paper in @MolecularCell: “FANCA-dependent FEN1 recruitment suppresses transcription-replication conflicts and PARPi sensitivity” Led by Qinhong Wang with a fantastic team at UNC. authors.elsevier.com/a/1nHRf3vVUPZO… @UNC_Lineberger @UNC_BCBP

DNA 'hopping' from one cell to another may sound like science fiction, but is in fact a real and observable phenonmenon recently discovered in #WelchGrantee @PeterLyLab at @UTSWMedCenter. Ly's team showed that genomic instability, such as mitotic spindle poisons, ionizing radiation, and Cas9-induced chromosome breakage, generates micronuclei and chromosome fragments in the cell cytoplasm that can escape from one cell to another. Once DNA fragments enter into the recipient cell, it can enter the nucleus and even be incorporated into the genome conferring phenotypic traits to the host. This discovery has huge implications for disease and cancer treatment. Congratulations to 1st author Elizabeth G. Maurais and the rest of the team on this work! cell.com/cell/fulltext/…

New online! A horizontal gene-transfer-like mechanism in mammalian cells dlvr.it/TT59ZR

Why 50% of human fertilized eggs fail to complete pre-implantation development? Latest work from my lab in @CellCellPress now clarifies the two causes that contribute to the low efficiency of early human embryos and provides one of the solutions. (1/7) doi.org/10.1016/j.cell…

Now online: Seeing is Believing: Intercellular Transfer of DNA between human cells doi.org/10.1158/0008-5…

Very excited to be sharing our new paper, just out in Nature Cell Biology! nature.com/articles/s4155… The big question we investigate: How do migrating cells put their front 🔴 and back 🔵 in the right place?

Excited to finally share our preprint on mapping the genetic interaction network of the DNA damage response with combinatorial knockout screens led by Sam Hayward, @vaitsiankova, and Tomas Lama-Diaz! biorxiv.org/cgi/content/sh…

New Online! DNA voyages through intercellular tunnels dlvr.it/TSxBQR

Thrilled to have contributed to this beautiful work from the O'Sullivan lab, now out @Nature! #auth-Ragini-Bhargava-Aff1" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">nature.com/articles/s4158…🧬 @ginibh31 @MahlkeMegan @KarlsederLab @UPMCHillmanCC

The Ly Lab @CRI_UTSW is recruiting two #postdocs to study intercellular DNA transfer. Join us to tackle fundamental questions at the intersection of genome instability, cell-cell communication, and cancer evolution. Please share! 🙏 Full posting: cri.utsw.edu/careers/

Learn how DNA can be exchanged between two cells that connect by forming nanotubes, and find out why this is crucial for cancer research. discovermagazine.com/human-cells-ca…