Balazs Sarkadi#

The research of Balazs Sarkadi has been concentrated on the investigation of biological membrane transport processes. Recently he is focusing on studying the membrane transport ATPases (ABC transporters), which play a major role in the multidrug resistance of cancer, in general pharmacology, and in stem cell function. Dr. Sarkadi and his colleagues devised new diagnostic methods for the quantitative functional analysis of these ABC proteins. They have also been involved in developing pharmacologically relevant compounds that specifically and selectively modulate the function of multidrug transporters, studied a newly recognized drug transporter, the ABCG2 protein, and applied a mutant variant of this protein as a selectable marker in experimental gene therapy. Recently he also became involved in stem cell research, focusing on membrane transporters during stem cell differentiation.

Balazs Sarkadi has published more than 140 papers in international scientific journals and was invited lecturer at numerous major international conferences.

He and his colleagues obtained four international patents on new methods and compounds related to cancer multidrug resistance. He is a Research Professor of Semmelweis University, Budapest, Hungary, actively participating in the education of graduate and postgraduate students. He served as supervisor for 14 Ph.D. students who already successfully obtained their doctoral degrees.