András Czirók

associate professor

PhD (Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, 2000)

Habilitation (Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, 2007)

Biography:

Trained as a Physicist, my scientific interest turned early towards understanding pattern formation and collective motion in biological systems, from bacterial colonies to flocks of birds. My postdoctoral training introduced me to developmental biology and embryology. My current research group continues to consist of physicists and biologists and collectively we try to achieve a synergistic approach where theoretical insights drive experimental design and vice versa. In the last ten years I actively developed microscopy and image processing and quantitative data analysis tools to study various aspects of early embryonic development. We pioneered the study of extracellular matrix dynamics during development, and studied cell motility relative to its ECM environment. We continue to image and computationally model early heart formation in avian embryos. In the last four years we established imaging technology to track the development of differentiating cardiomyocyte cultures. During the last two years we established 3D printing, electrospinning and ECM decellularization techniques in my lab.

Major grants:

• NIH R01GM102801 Morphogenetic tissue movements in Early Embryos (2014-2019)
• OTKA K118119 ANN Cell contractility in mesothelioma progression (2015-2019)
• Australian Research Council: Tissue morphology emerging from adaptive multicellular mechanics (2015-2019)
• NKFI KTIA AIK 12-1-2013-0041 Interdisciplinary analysis of angiogenesis and lymphangiogenesis in mesothelioma (2013-2015)
• NIH R01HL087135 Role of fibronectin in vascular plexus formation (2007-2013)
• OTKA K72664 Tissue organization by cell collectives (2008-2012)

Links to associated scientific database profiles:

• Publications in MTMT
• Publications in ORCID
• Publications in ResearcherID
• Publications in Google Scholar
• Publications in www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
• User profile at doktori.hu

Selected publications of recent years:

1. Méhes E, Biri-Kovács B, Isai DG, Gulyás M, Nyitray L, Czirók A. Matrigel patterning reflects multicellular contractility. PLoS Comput Biol. 2019 Oct 25;15(10):e1007431.
2. Mehes E, Barath M, Gulyas M, Bugyik E, Geiszt M, Szoor A, Lanyi A, Czirok A. Enhanced endothelial motility and multicellular sprouting is mediated by the scaffold protein TKS4. Sci Rep. 2019 Oct 7;9(1):14363.
3. Lakatos D, Somfai E, Méhes E, Czirók A. Soluble VEGFR1 signaling guides vascular patterns into dense branching morphologies. J Theor Biol. 2018 Nov 7;456:261-278. DOI
4. Neufeld Z, von Witt W, Lakatos D, Wang J, Hegedus B, Czirok A. The role of Allee effect in modelling post resection recurrence of glioblastoma. PLoS Comput Biol. 2017 Nov 17;13(11):e1005818.
5. Czirok A, Isai DG, Kosa E, Rajasingh S, Kinsey W, Neufeld Z, Rajasingh J. Optical-flow based non-invasive analysis of cardiomyocyte contractility. Sci Rep. 2017 Sep 4;7(1):10404.
6. Czirok A, Isai DG. Cell resolved, multiparticle model of plastic tissue deformations and morphogenesis. Phys Biol. 2014 Dec 15;12(1):016005.
7. Lakatos D, Travis ED, Pierson KE, Vivian JL, Czirok A. Autocrine FGF feedback can establish distinct states of Nanog expression in pluripotent stem cells: a computational analysis. BMC Syst Biol. 2014 Sep 27;8:112.
8. Chakravarti AR, Pacelli S, Alam P, Bagchi S, Modaresi S, Czirok A, Ahmed RPH, Paul A. Pre-Conditioning Stem Cells in a Biomimetic Environment for Enhanced Cardiac Tissue Repair: In Vitro and In Vivo Analysis. Cell Mol Bioeng. 2018 Oct;11(5):321-336.
9. Biermann M, Cai W, Lang D, Hermsen J, Profio L, Zhou Y, Czirok A, Isai DG, Napiwocki BN, Rodriguez AM, Brown ME, Woon MT, Shao A, Han T, Park D, Hacker TA, Crone WC, Burlingham WJ, Glukhov AV, Ge Y, Kamp TJ. Epigenetic Priming of Human Pluripotent Stem Cell-Derived Cardiac Progenitor Cells Accelerates Cardiomyocyte Maturation. Stem Cells. 2019 Jul;37(7):910-923.
10. Laszlo V, Valko Z, Kovacs I, Ozsvar J, Hoda MA, Klikovits T, Lakatos D, Czirok A, Garay T, Stiglbauer A, Helbich TH, Gröger M, Tovari J, Klepetko W, Pirker C, Grusch M, Berger W, Hilberg F, Hegedus B, Dome B. Nintedanib Is Active in Malignant Pleural Mesothelioma Cell Models and Inhibits Angiogenesis and Tumor Growth In Vivo. Clin Cancer Res. 2018 Aug 1;24(15):3729-3740.