Daniela Čiháková, M.D., Ph.D., D(ABMLI)
Principal Investigator / Lab Director
Dr. Čiháková’s Johns Hopkins profile
Dr. Daniela Ciháková is Professor of Pathology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. She also has a joint appointment in the Department of Molecular Microbiology and Immunology. Dr. Ciháková is an American Board of Medical Laboratory Immunology (ABMLI) certified clinical laboratory immunologist and an Associate Director of Immunology Clinical Laboratory at Johns Hopkins University. Dr. Ciháková was named the new Deputy Director for Faculty Development.
Her research focuses on the cardiac immunology and understanding how immune cells and cardiac stromal cells contribute to the pathogenesis of various cardiovascular diseases such as myocarditis, dilated cardiomyopathy, pericarditis, myocardial infarction or check point inhibitors induced cardiac inflammation and congenital complete heart block. She also studies autoimmune disorders such as Sjögren’s syndrome, rheumatoid arthritis and gluten associated diseases in schizophrenia.
Dr. Ciháková earned her M.D. and Ph.D. from Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic. She completed her postdoctoral fellowship at Johns Hopkins University in 2006. Dr. Ciháková joined the Johns Hopkins faculty in 2008.
Dr. Ciháková research has been supported by the NIH/NHBLI, American Heart Association, Children’s Cardiomyopathy Foundation, W.W. Smith Charitable Trust, Mirowski Discovery Award, National Organization for Rare Diseases, American Autoimmune Related Disease Association (AARDA), Sjögrens syndrome Foundation, Matthew Poyner MVP Memorial Myocarditis Research Foundation and Myocarditis Foundation.
Monica Vladut-Talor, MSc.
Senior Research Specialist
Role: Manage, coordinate, and supervise the day-to-day operations of the research laboratory, in the Department of Pathology, JHU.
Conduct all sample processing for Epigenetic study in the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis (MESA). Participate in all aspects of the research lab, maintain budges, orders, contracts and renew all biohazard registrations and relevant protocols. Conduct all mice genotyping and oversee the management of the animal colony. Preform all assays involved in the Confirmatory Double blinded placebo-controlled efficacy Trial of a gluten-free diet in a subgroup of persons with Schizophrenia who have high levels of anti-gliadin antibodies.
Professional Training: MSc. degree in Microbiology, University of Ottawa, Canada, (1985). Joined the laboratory of Noel Rose at School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University in 1987. Instrumental in obtaining the Clinical Laboratory License for the Immunologic Disorders Clinical Laboratory at JHU in 1988. Ran the CLIA and CAP certified Immunologic Disorders laboratory from 2008-2016 under the directorship of Dr. Daniela Cihakova.
Main interests: Contribute and support research in the laboratory with special emphasis in investigating autoimmune myocarditis and autoimmune thyroid disease. Help establish and participate in collaborative and ongoing studies within and outside of JHU. Perform, expand, validate, and collaborate to bring in-house a large repertoire of tests that help in the diagnosis and subsequent treatment of patients with autoimmune diseases.
Post-Doctoral Fellows
Robin Welsh, Ph.D.
Dr. Robin Welsh received her Ph.D. in Immunology from Johns Hopkins University in 2021. As both a Post-doctoral Fellow and Doctoral candidate she worked in the laboratory of Dr. Scheherazade Sadegh-Nasseri focusing on the in vivo roll of an MHC Class II accessory protein, HLA-DO, on CD4+ T cell development and activation. In particular, she was interested on what impact loss of HLA-DO had on regulatory T cells.
Dr. Welsh also holds an M.Sc. in Molecular biology and a B.A. in Biology from Smith College. Working with Dr. Steven Williams, she investigated genetic changes in the filarial nematode B. malayi during the transition from the mosquito vector to a mammalian host. In Dr. Čiháková’s laboratory, she will be attempting to induce a more regulatory immune environment in the heart during both EAM and viral myocarditis thereby lessening disease severity. “
Ph.D. Candidates
David Elias, B.S.
David Elias received his B.S. in Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry from Yale University in 2016. Throughout his undergraduate training, he worked in the lab of Dr. George Miller and Dr. Ayman El-Guindy, investigating the role of a long noncoding RNA, BHLF1, in Epstein Barr Virus lytic replication. Following graduation, he completed a 2-year post baccalaureate program at the NIH in the lab of Dr. Edward Berger where he worked on the development of CAR T cells as a potential HIV therapeutic. In 2018, he began his time at Johns Hopkins as a matriculant into the M.D.-Ph.D. program and is a student in the Graduate Program of Immunology. As a member of the Cihakova lab, David is studying how the stroma of the heart coordinates the immune response to injury and infection. Additionally, he is interested in therapeutically targeting cardiac fibroblasts to slow down the development of heart failure.
Camille Jaime, B.S.
Camille Jaime was born and raised in Manati, Puerto Rico. She graduated in 2020 with a B.S. in Microbiology from the University of Iowa. During her undergraduate studies, she worked in the lab of Dr. Ashutosh Mangalam, investigating the effect of high-fat diet and differing HLA mouse strains on the gut microbiota and their role in the onset of multiple sclerosis. She also contributed to the work of Dr. Larry Pease at the Mayo Clinic as a summer intern to develop an in-vivo CART cell mouse model.
Currently, she is a Ph.D. candidate in the Graduate Program of Immunology for the School of Medicine. Her focus in the Čiháková lab is to understand the minimum requirements for the induction of autoimmune disease in different myocarditis mouse models and to learn the surgical protocol for murine myocardial infarctions. In addition to autoimmunity, Camille has a passion for diverse representation in STEM and effective science communication. She hopes one day to be as cool as everyone else in the lab and to own a Pembroke Welsh corgi.
Ina Sulkaj B.A.
Ina was born in Albania. She graduated in 2017 with a B.A. with Honors in Neuroscience from Boston University. During her post-back she worked as a research assistant at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in the Transplant Department and at David H. Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at MIT. During her time as a research assistant she worked in bioengineering the immune system to ameliorate transplant rejection and developing CAR-T therapies against solid tumors. She began her time at Johns Hopkins in 2021 as Ph.D. candidate in the department of Immunology. She joined Dr. Cihakova’s lab in May 2022 and has been working to understand the immune signaling involved in the differentiation of monocytes to macrophages following heart injury.
Master’s Candidates
Wonyoung Jo, B.S.
Wonyoung Jo graduated with a B.S. with Honors in Bioengineering from Washington State University in 2022. During his undergraduate studies, he worked in the lab of Dr. Wenji Dong, investigating a paper-based nucleic-acid amplification (NAA) test for rapid diagnosis of COVID-19 infection by modeling cascading CRISPR reactions with artificial Y-shaped DNA. Currently, Wonyoung is a Master of Science student in the Biomedical Engineering Department of the Whiting School of Engineering and the School of Medicine. In the first year of his Master’s degree, he conducted research on SHAPR (SSB-Helicase Assisted Rapid PCR), a novel isothermal amplification method, in the lab of Dr. Taekjip Ha. His primary role in the lab was to standardize experimental conditions and design experiments to understand the mechanism of SHARP. He joined Dr. Čiháková’s lab in May 2023. His work in the Čiháková laboratory focuses on knocking out specific immune checkpoint inhibitors on T cells using CRISPR to study the effects of treatments on autoimmune diseases such as myocarditis in mouse models.
Abdel Rahman Daoud, B.S., M.S.
Abdel Rahman Daoud graduated with a B.S. in biomedical engineering and biochemistry with minors in computer science and biology core curriculum from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. During his undergraduate study, he worked on several short-term projects that spanned foci, such as molecular neuroscience, biomaterial design and virology. For the past year and a half, he had been working on a physiology project with the UW-Madison Biology Core Curriculum Department that focused on the optimization of husbandry conditions for the maintenance of California Blackworms, an annelids species utilized conventionally as a vascular biology tool by high school teachers and college professors. Currently, Abdel is a Master of Health Science student in the Molecular Microbiology and Immunology Department of the Bloomberg School of Public Health. Abdel’s primary role in the Čiháková Lab includes contribution to efforts that aim to analyze data collected from sequencing cardiomyocyte nuclei isolated from mice and human heart tissues. Abdel received his Master’s Degree in May 2023 and continues to work on the CODA project in the Cihakova lab.
Undergraduate Students
Shreyanshu Ray
Shreyanshu Ray is a current undergraduate student at Johns Hopkins University with a major in Biomedical Engineering and minor in Computer Science. He began his journey in scientific research under the guidance of Dr. Joshua Hutcheson at Florida International University. His work in the Hutcheson lab focused on a project that aimed to develop a method to quantify aortic valve strain values for mouse models. Currently, in the Čiháková Lab his work is focused on the role of different cytokines in the pathogenesis of specific inflammation and autoimmune diseases, such as myocarditis, induced in mouse models.
Bianca Kolim
Bianca Kolim is an undergraduate student at Johns Hopkins University majoring in Molecular & Cellular Biology with a minor in Computational Biology. She has formerly worked on epigenetics research at the Lundquist Institute and modeling immune cell interactions in Python. At the Čiháková Lab, Bianca is working on analyzing data from mice and human heart tissues using single-cell RNA sequencing and CODA to computationally produce 3D reconstructions of the heart.
Neil Mahto
Neil is an undergraduate student majoring in computational neuroscience. He was first exposed to scientific research under the guise of Dr. Sam McKenzie at the University of New Mexico where he conducted research on neuronal transitions between sleep states and epilepsy treatment. Neil has also published two papers in the field of neurosurgery. In the Cihakova lab, Neil is using CODA to perform 3d reconstructions of heart tissue.