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Daniela
Cihakova
,
MD

Associate Professor
Daniela Cihakova

Departmental Affiliations

School of Medicine
Primary

Contact Info

720 Rutland Avenue, Ross Building 648
Baltimore
Maryland
21205
US        

Research Interests

Autoimmunity; Immunology; Myocarditis, Dilated Cardiomyopathy; Cardiac Fibroblasts; monocytes; macrophages, T cells
Experiences & Accomplishments
Education
PhD
Charles University
2003
MD
Charles University
1998
Overview
Daniela Cihakova, MD, PhD is an Associate Professor in the Johns Hopkins Department of Pathology, Division of Immunology and a Director of the Immune Disorders Laboratory. Dr. Cihakova has a joint appointment in the Department of Molecular Microbiology and Immunology, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. She received her MD in 1998 and PhD in 2003 from Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic. Dr.Cihakova completed her postdoctoral fellowship with Noel Rose at Johns Hopkins University in 2006. She has been tenure track faculty since 2008. She received her ABMLI clinical laboratory immunologist certification in 2013. Dr. Cihakova is a member of the editorial board of Clinical Immunology and also serves on the American Heart Association Study Section. In her research, Dr.Cihakova focuses on gaining a better understanding of the pathogenesis of autoimmune diseases. She examines the role of cardiac resident cells and monocytes/macrophages in the inflammatory heart disease and the development of dilated cardiomyopathy. With her collegues, she have described a new pathway that IL-17A, a key Th17 cytokine, utilizes to drive dilated cardiomyopathy, by stimulating cardiac fibroblast to produce GM-CSF and induce proinflammatory differentiation of monocytyes.
Dr.Cihakova's other interest are the pathogenic role of SSA/SSB antibodies in the development of congenital complete heart block and the susceptibility to Candida infections in patients with autoimmune polyendocrinopathy-candidiasis-ectodermal dystrophy (APECED). Her research has been supported by NIH/NHBLI, American Heart Association, Sjogren's syndrome foundation.
Select Publications
Most recent publications
  • Diny NL, Baldeviano GC, Talor MV, Barin JG, Ong S, Bedja D, Hays GH, Gilotra NA, Coppens I, Rose NR, and ?iháková D. Eosinophil-derived IL4 drives progression of myocarditis to inflammatory dilated cardiomyopathy. Journal of Experimental Medicine, 2017; 214(4):943-957. Article was chosen as a front cover story.
  • Diny NL, Hou X, Barin JG, Chen G, Talor MV, Schaub J, Russell SD, Klingel K, Rose NR, ?iháková D. Macrophages and cardiac fibroblasts are the main producers of eotaxins and regulate eosinophil trafficking to the heart. Eur J Immunol. 2016;46(12):2749-2760. Article was chosen as a back cover story
  • Diny N, Rose NR, ?iháková D*. Eosinophils in Autoimmune Diseases. Frontiers in Immunology. 2017; 8:484
  • Wu L, Ong S, Talor MV, Jobert G. Barin JG, Baldeviano GC, Kass DA, Bedja D, Zhang H, Sheikh A, Margolick JB, Iwakura5 Y, Rose NR, and Ciháková D*. Cardiac Fibroblasts Mediate IL-17A-Driven Inflammatory Dilated Cardiomyopathy. Journal of Experimental Medicine. 2014 211(7):1449-64
  • Baldeviano GC, Barin JG, Talor MV, Srinivasan S, Bedja D, Zheng D, Gabrielson K, Iwakura Y, Rose NR, Ciháková D*. Interleukin-17A Is Dispensable for Myocarditis but Essential for the Progression to Dilated Cardiomyopathy. Circ Res. 2010; 106(10):1646-1655