Curriculum vitae

I. Personal details

Born: 9. September 1974., Baraolt, Covasna county, Romania
Address: 9902 Allison Lane, Houston, TX 77054, USA
Telephone: +(1)-314-5832512
Employment: lecturer, The University of Texas, M. D. Anderson Cancer Center, Department of Systems Biology
Office address: Department of Systems Biology, Unit 950, UT M. D. Anderson Cancer Center, 7435 Fannin Street, Houston, TX 77054, USA
Office telephone: +(1)-713-8346157
E-mail: [email protected]
Webpage: https://faculty.mdanderson.org/Gábor_Balázsi/Default.asp

II. Studies

• 1992–1996: B.Sc. in Physics, Babeş-Bolyai University, Department of Physics, Cluj-Napoca, Romania
• 1996–1997: M.Sc. in Magnetism, Babeş-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania
• 1997–1999: M.Sc. in Physics, University of Missouri, St. Louis, USA
• 1999–2001: Ph.D. in Physics, University of Missouri, St. Louis & Rolla, Department of Physics. The Ph.D.-thesis was defended in 2001. The title of the thesis: Spatiotemporal Dynamics of Noisy Excitable Systems: Application to Cultured Human Glial Cell Networks. Scientific supervisor Prof. Dr. Frank Moss.

III. Scientific career

• 1996–1997: assistant lecturer, Babeş-Bolyai University, Faculty of Physics, Cluj-Napoca
• 1997–1999: assistant lecturer, University of Missouri, St. Louis, Department of Physics, USA
• 1999–2001: researcher assistant lecturer, University of Missouri, St. Louis, Department of Physics, USA
• 2002–2005: post-doc fellow, Northwestern University, Department of Pathology, USA
• 2005–2006: post-doc fellow, Boston University, Department of Biomedical Engineering, USA
• 2006–…: assistant professor, Department of Systems Biology, University of Texas, M. D. Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX, USA
• 2006–…: Ph.D.-supervisor, University of Texas, Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, Houston, Texas, USA
• 2009–…: adjunct assistant professor, Rice University, Department of Bioengineering, Houston, Texas, USA

IV. Research domain: Synthetic Biology, Systems Biology, Biophysics
Research subjects: gene regulatory networks, synthetic biology, the evolutionary role of gene expression noise, drug resistance

V. Scientific activity (research projects, grants)

• 1996–1997: member of the ‘Stochastic resonance’ research project. Program director: Prof. dr. Zoltán Néda (Babeş-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania).
• 1998–2001: member of the ‘Dynamics of noisy excitable systems, neurodynamics, calcium dynamics in cultured glial cells’ research project. Program director: Prof. dr. Frank Moss (University of Missouri, St. Louis, USA).
• 2002–2005: member of the ‘Gene regulatory network topology, genomic data analysis’ research project. Program directors: dr. Zoltán Oltvai (Northwestern University, USA) and Dr. Albert-László Barabási (University of Notre Dame, USA).
• 2005–2006: member of the ‘Gene expression noise, synthetic biology’ research project. Program director: Prof. James J. Collins (Boston University, USA).
• 2009–…: member of the ‘Pan-European network for study and clinical management of drug resistant tuberculosis’ research project. Program director: Dr. Daniella M. Cirillo (Fondazione Centro San Raffaele del Monte Tabor, Milan, Italy).
• 2009–...: coordinator of the ‘Evolution through the selection of noisy gene expression deviants’ research project.

VI. Teaching activity

• Theoretical Evolution course (invited lecturer, University of Houston, USA)
• Systems Biology course (Summer School, University of Texas, M. D. Anderson Cancer Center, USA)
• Systems Biology of Gene Regulation course (University of Texas, Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences Ph.D.-program)

VII. Membership (Professional Societies / Editorial Board of Scientific Journals):

Invited lecturer:
2001: Invited lecturer, Computational and Systems Biology course, Microsoft Research - University of Trento Centre for Computational and Systems Biology (CoSBi), Trento, Italy.

Scientific honours:

• 1999: assistant lecturer prize, Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Missouri, St. Louis, USA.
• 2001: PhD Dissertation Research Fellowship, University of Missouri, St. Louis, USA.
• 2001: post-doc fellowship, National Research Council – National Institutes of Health, USA.
• 2001: post-doc fellowship, Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, Germany.
• 2009: Distinguished Alumni Award, Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Missouri, St. Louis, USA.
• 2009: New Innovator Award, The NIH Director’s Office, National Institutes of Health USA.

VIII. Important scientific results:

• Generalizing the concept of stochastic resonance to excitable biological systems
• Increased synchronization of calcium fluctuations in epileptic vs. normal glial cell cultures
• Stochastic synchronization in oscillator systems with phase-repulsive coupling
• Studying the topology and environmental response of gene regulatory networks
• Controlling gene expression noise through synthetic gene circuits
• Assembly of the first large-scale Mycobacterium tuberculosis gene regulatory network and the analysis of network response during hypoxia
• Building the first gene expression linearizer

IX. Membership (Professional Societies / Editorial Board of Scientific Journals)

Journals:
member of the referee board of several international journals, e.g. Bioinformatics, Biophysical Journal, Cell, Genome Biology, Journal of Theoretical Biology, Journal of Molecular Biology, Molecular Systems Biology, Physical Review Letters, Physical Review E, PLoS Computational Biology, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Science, etc.

Professional Societies:

• scientific referee for the National Institutes of Health (USA), National Science Foundation (USA), Israel Science Foundation (Israel) and Swiss National Science Foundation (Switzerland)
• member of Postdoctoral Advisory Committee at the University of Texas (USA)

X. Language skills:

• Hungarian – mother tongue
• English – fluent
• Romanian – fluent
• German – fairly good
• Spanish – fairly good