Szent István University
The Szent István University (SIU) is one of Hungary’s most prominent institutions of higher education, with 6 faculties ranging from agriculture, horticulture, engineering, humanities as well as social sciences. SIU received Recognition of its scientific activity with 2 faculties given the ”research faculty” award, by the Hungarian government with regard to their quality of research and innovation. Scientific cooperation within the university and with other higher educational institutions, academic and research institutes is very important and SIU maintains strong international connections with partners in almost every continent allowing students and staff to collaborate on a global scale to gain and share knowledge and expertise essential to their success. The University campuses are located in Budapest and 6 other surrounding towns, headquartered in the town of Gödöllő. The university enrolls 16,000 students and 1,300 academic staff and provides a comfortable, relaxing environment for the attainment of knowledge with several university campuses located in beautiful historic building throughout Hungary. SIU has also undertaken an extensive programme of refurbishment to assist the rapid growth of the university, opening a fully refurbished new student hostel for 464 in Gödöllő.
Short biography principal investigator
Prof. Dr. Andras Dinnyes
Prof. Dr. Andras Dinnyes (PhD, DVM, DSc) co-founder and general director of BIOT. He has been working on embryology, cryobiology, cloning and stem cell biology since 1985. He has been a Fulbright Scholar in the US in 1991-92 and worked at the University of Connecticut (US) for 1997-99, where he invented and patented the solid surface vitrification (SSV) technology. In 2000 he joined the cloning team in Roslin Institute (the „Dolly team”) as team leader. His team succeeded in the production of the first gene knock-out lamb, and the first cloned piglet in Europe. He was advisor for Geron Inc, US, a pioneer company in regenerative medicine with human pluripotent stem cells. In 2001 he has returned to Hungary, as a Wellcome Trust International Senior Research Fellow. He is full professor at Szent Istvan University, Hungary (2008-), was invited professor at the Veterinary Faculty of Utrecht University, the Netherlands (2010-16) and invited high-level expert at Sichuan University, China (2016-17). H-index: 34.
Prof. Andras Dinnyes is a full professor and registered doctoral supervisor at SIU. He is the main supervisor of ESR1 and ESR2, for whom SIU will act as the PhD awarding Institution.
Key persons involved
Dr Julianna Kobolak
Dr Julianna Kobolak (PhD): Research Director of BioTalentum and a registered external doctoral supervisor at SIU. Molecular biologist and economist with excellent research experience in stem cell biology. She has worked for several years in establishing and differentiating embryonic and adult mouse stem cells to define the differences between reprogrammed and fertilized embryo-derived stem cells at transcriptome level and in differentiation potential. Currently, she investigates the potential of human iPSCs in modelling and treating of human diseases e.g. Alzheimer’s and osteoarthritis. She was awarded with two EMBO fellowships (2002; 2006) and an ISSCR Travel Grant for Young Investigators in 2007. Expertise in stem cell technologies, cell differentiation, molecular techniques, genetic engineering, assay development.
Key Research Facility and Equipment
First-class teaching facilities. The Univeristy offers research oriented doctoral education in 8 scientific branches including the School of Basic Animal Sciences at Godollo, which is currently collaborating with BIOT providing doctoral programs for H2020 MC ITN CasR, and H2020 MC ITN In3, providing access to some of the top research facilities in Hungary. Numerous postgraduate training courses are available within the college to advanced training of ESRs.
Current involvement in Research and Training Programmes
Previous funding includes: coordinator of “FP7-PEOPLE-2011-IAPP Project Id.286264 ANISTEM
Current funding includes: H2020-MSCA-ITN; Project ID: 317146 EpiHealthNet. improve health of the human population by understanding the mechanisms and pathways in early development, with special emphasis on epigenetic changes
Web: https://szie.hu/