Gábor Balázsi, Ph.D.
Henry Laufer Professor
RESEARCH FOCUS
The goal of my laboratory is to develop a predictive, quantitative understanding of biological processes such as cellular decision making and the survival and evolution of cell populations. We have been pursuing two main research directions: (1) computational modeling of natural gene regulatory networks and (2) designing, building and experimentally characterizing synthetic gene circuits. Our current goal is to merge these two efforts, and use synthetic gene circuits as perturbation tools to understand how gene regulatory networks control cells and cell populations. In the past, we mapped gene regulatory network responses to environmental changes; we showed how nongenetic cellular diversity can aid cell survival and mediate drug resistance; we built various synthetic gene circuits to control nongenetic cellular variability; we built “dimmer” or “linearizer” gene circuits for precise gene expression tuning; we developed computational models of natural and synthetic gene regulatory networks affecting drug resistance and metastasis; and we have confirmed computational predictions of evolutionary dynamics by experimental evolution of cells carrying synthetic gene circuits, bridging the fields of synthetic and evolutionary biology. Now we are ready to interface natural gene networks with synthetic gene circuits to study how controlling gene network dynamics affects cellular phenotypes in cancer and drug resistance.
EDUCATION
- Ph.D. - Physics, University of Missouri at Saint Louis & Missouri S&T at Rolla, USA, 2001
- M.S. - Physics, University of Missouri at Saint Louis, USA, 1999
- M.S. - Magnetism, Babeş-Bolyai University of Cluj, Romania, 1997
- B.S. - Physics, Babeş-Bolyai University of Cluj, Romania, 1996
ACADEMIC APPOINTMENTS
- 2014 - current: Henry Laufer Associate Professor, Department of Biomedical Engineering, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, New York, USA
- 2014 - current: Henry Laufer Associate Professor, The Louis & Beatrice Laufer Center for Physical & Quantitative Biology, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, New York, USA
- 2012 - 2014: Associate Professor, Department of Systems Biology, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, Texas, USA
- 2006 - 2012: Assistant Professor, Department of Systems Biology, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, Texas, USA
PUBLICATIONS
Click here for Gábor Balázsi's PubMed listings.
Click here for Gábor Balázsi's Google Scholar listings.
COURSES TAUGHT
BME/CHE/PHY 558 – Physical and Quantitative Biology (SBU)