Publications

Visit Alexander’s Google Scholar Profile for the most up-to-date list of publications.

Synthetic Biology:

Aldrete C.A., Call C.C., Sant’Anna L.E., Vlahos A.E., Pei J., Cong Q., Gao X.J. “Orthogonalized human protease control of secreted signals.” Nature Chemical Biology, 2025.

Aldrete C.A., An C., Call C.C., Gao X.J.#, Vlahos A.E.# “Perspectives on synthetic protein circuits in mammalian cells.” Current Opinion in Biomedical Engineering, 32:100555, 2024. #co-corresponding authors.

Vlahos A.E., Call C.C., Kadaba S.E., Guo S., Gao X.J. “Compact Programmable Control of Protein Secretion in Mammalian Cells.”

Available on BioRxiv: https://doi.org/10.1101/2023.10.04.560774

Vlahos A.E., Kang J., Aldrete C.A., Zhu R., Chong L.S., Elowitz M.B., Gao X.J. “Protease-controlled secretion and display of intercellular signals.” Nature Communications, 13, 912, 2022.

Press Release: “‘Protein circuits’ move a step closer to cell-to-cell communication”

Islet Tissue Engineering & Regenerative Medicine:

Vlahos A.E., Kinney S.M., Kingston B.R., Keshavjee S., Won S., Martyts A., Chan W.C.W., Sefton M.V. “Endothelialized collagen based pseudo-islets enables tuneable subcutaneous diabetes therapy.” Biomaterials 232, 119710, 2020.

Work highlighted as Editor’s Choice in Science Translational Medicine: “Organoid optimization: Engineering a better cell therapy to treat type 1 diabetes”

Press Release: “U of T researchers develop method to improve transplantation of artificial insulin-producing cells”

Vlahos A.E., Sefton M.V. “ Endothelialized collagen modules for islet tissue engineering.” Transplantation, Bioengineering, and Regeneration of the Endocrine Pancreas Volume 2, Chapter 20, 277-287, 2020.

Vlahos A.E., Sefton M.V. “Muted fibrosis from protected islets.” Nature Biomedical Engineering 2 (11), 791-792, 2018.

Mahou R., Vlahos A.E., Shulman A., Sefton M.V. “Interpenetrating alginate-collagen polymer network microspheres for modular tissue engineering.” ACS Biomater. Sci. Eng. 4 (11), 3704- 3712, 2018.

Vlahos A.E., Cober N., Sefton M.V. “Modular tissue engineering for the vascularization of subcutaneously transplanted pancreatic islets.” PNAS 114 (35), 9337-9342, 2017.

Press Release: “The best place to treat type 1 diabetes might be just under your skin”

Ciucurel E.C., Vlahos A.E., Sefton M.V. “Using Del-1 to tip the angiogenic balance in endothelial cells in modular constructs.” Tissue Eng Part A (7-8), 1222-1234, 2014.

Angiogenic Biomaterials:

Kinney S.M., Ortaleza K., Vlahos A.E., Sefton M.V. “Degradable methacrylic acid-based synthetic hydrogel for subcutaneous islet transplantation.” Biomaterials 281, 121342, 2022.

Vlahos A.E., Talior-Volodarsky I., Kinney S.M., Sefton M.V. “A scalable device-less biomaterial approach for subcutaneous islet transplantation.” Biomaterials 269, 120499, 2021.

Mahou R., Zhang D.K.Y., Vlahos A.E., Sefton M.V. “Injectable and inherently vascularizing semi-interpenetrating polymer network for delivering cells to the subcutaneous space.” Biomaterials (131), 27-35, 2017.