Our Team

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RNDr. Jaroslava Babková, PhD.

RNDr. Jaroslava Babková, PhD, works as an assistant professor at the Institute of Physiology, Faculty of Medicine, Comenius University in Bratislava. She graduated in genetics from the Faculty of Science, Comenius university. In 2014, she completed her doctoral studies at the Institute of Physiology, Faculty of Medicine, Comenius University, in the field of Normal and Pathological Physiology. She completed international stays abroad in Great Britain and the USA. She studies the effects of sex hormones on behavior and cognitive function. She also collaborates on projects focused on revealing the etiology of autism. Together with her colleagues, she was awarded the IgNobel Prize for Medicine (2015) for research of intense kissing.

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Prof. Daniela Ostatníková, MD, PhD

After graduating from general medicine at the Faculty of Medicine of Comenius University in Bratislava, she served as medical doctor at the Department of internal Medicine. She completed her postgraduate education at the Faculty of Medicine, Comenius University, where she is currently a Professor of normal and pathological physiology and a guarantor of the doctoral study program "Medical Neurosciences". Her main topics of interest has been the effects of sex steroids on cognitive function and the involvement of hormones in the etiology of autism. She completed several residencies at foreign universities, thanks to the Fulbright Foundation study stay at the University of Michigan (2004), thanks to the Templeton Scholarship study stay at the University of Iowa (2008). She has been a visiting professor at Nova Southeastern University, Florida. She initiated the cooperation with prof. Baron-Cohen at the Autism Research Center at the University of Cambridge, developed by her students. She is the founder of Academic Research Center for Autism.

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Assoc. prof. Katarína Babinská, MD, PhD. MSc.

A graduate of the Medical Faculty of Comenius University in Bratislava, where she later defended her dissertation and obtained the PhD degree in the field of normal and pathological physiology. She completed her postgraduate studies at the University of London in Great Britain by obtaining the title of Master of Human Nutrition. After graduating, she has been involved for 12 years in research of human nutrition. She is currently an Associate Professor at the Institute of Physiology, Comenius University lecturing Human Physiology, as well as Nutrition. During her fellowship in USA, she was trained in research methods of dietary assessment. Since 2010, she has been investigating autism within the Academic Research Center for Autism. Her research interest is focused mainly on digestive problems, nutrition, and dietary issues, as well as sleep impairments associated autism spectrum disorders.

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Mgr. Ivan Belica, PhD.

He graduated in psychology from the University of Trnava. He successfully completed postgraduate studies at the Institute of Physiology, Comenius University, under the guidance of Assoc. prof. Katarína Babinská, Ph.D. MSc. with the topic of “Adaptive Behavior in Autism and its biological correlates”. As a part of the ARCA team, he participates in the diagnosis and research of autism. He also works as a researcher at the Research Institute of Child Psychology and Pathopsychology in Bratislava.

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Mgr. Hana Celušáková, PhD.

Clinical psychologist, independent researcher She earned her Master´s degree in psychology at the Faculty of Arts, Comenius University in Bratislava (1998). From 1998 to 2003 she worked at the Philip Pinel Psychiatric Hospital in Pezinok. In 2002, she completed her specialization studies in Clinical Psychology Psychology (Faculty of Medicine, Slovak Medical University SZU). Later, she completed the Certified Study Program in Psychotherapy in PCA. In 2009, she gained the qualification for a certified psychotherapist and was registered in the Registry of Psychotherapists of the Slovak Republic. Since 2008 she has been practicing as an independent psychologist. In 2019 she successfully completed doctoral studies at the Faculty of Medicine, Comenius University under the guidance of Prof. MUDr. D. Ostatníková, PhD., with the topic "Cognitive abilities and deficits in children with autism spectrum disorder". She is currently a member of the research team at the Academic Research Center for Autism at the Faculty of Medicine, Comenius University. She is specialized in the diagnostic process of individuals with autism. Her activities include publishing and lecturing.

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MUDr. Dominika Grochová

She graduated from the Medical Faculty of Comenius University in Bratislava. She currently works as a member of teaching staff at the Institute of Physiology, Comenius University in Bratislava. After completing the training, she deals with the diagnosis of children with suspected ASD using the ADI-R and ADOS-2 methods.

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Mgr. Mária Kopčíková

She graduated from the Faculty of Arts, Comenius University in Bratislava,  in the field of psychology psychology in 1998. In the years 1997 - 2009 she worked in the Center of Pedagogical - Psychological Counselling and Prevention in Bratislava focusing on working with children, with entire class groups (topics included prevention of socio-pathological issues, peer groups, behavioural problems, and adaptation to school). She also worked with teachers and parents. Part of her work was the preparation and implementation of various projects. She completed the basic psychotherapeutic training at PCAin 2001. She has been registered as a member of the Slovak Chamber of Psychologists since2009. Since the same year, she has been working in private practice as a team member at the “Kvapka” Family Center. In 2018, she completed a specialized study of counselling psychology at the Slovak Medical University University in Bratislava. Since December 2019, she has also been part of the team of the ARCA team. From 2021 she is a doctoral student at the Institute of Physiology, Comenius University, where under the guidance of prof. MUDr. Daniela Ostatníková deals with the topic of Biological markers of developmental trajectories in children with ASD.

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Mgr. Katarína Polónyiová

She completed her master´s degree in psychology at the Faculty of Arts, Comenius University in Bratislava. She is currently a full-time doctoral student in the field of Medical Neurosciences at the Medical Faculty of Comenius University in Bratislava. Under the supervision of prof. MUDr. Daniela Ostatníková PhD., she is working on the topic of the dissertation „Cognitive abilities of individuals with autism spectrum disorders”, focusing on theory of mind, executive functions and intelligence of individuals with ASD. At the Academic Research Center for Autism at the Comenius University Medical Faculty, she is a part of the diagnostic team and is actively involved in scientific work within several research projects. She also leads a long-term project about the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on mental health of families with children with ASD and families with neurotypical children.

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MUDr. Silvia Hnilicová

After graduating from the Faculty of Medicine, Comenius University, MUDr . Silvia Hnilicová worked at the Institute of Pharmacology and Clinical Pharmacology at the Faculty of Medicine with a specialist internship and an examination in internal medicine at II. Department of Internal Medicine, Comenius University. She focused on patient adherence to treatment and participated in the establishment of the Drug Information Center at the Comenius University Faculty of Medicine. In 1994 she completed a study stay at Universidad La Laguna, Spain. During her 13-year stay in the USA, she devoted herself to autism and ABA therapy. She worked as Program Director, Home-Based Autism Therapy from 2004 to 2009. Since 2009, she has focused on the quality of health care provided, culminating in a PhD. In 2011 and 2012, she worked as a program director for medical affairs at the “Klient PRO SK” Since 2013, she has been working at ARCA, Faculty of Medicine, CU as a diagnostician and is the founder of ARCA oz. She specializes in autism screening, early diagnosis and creating standards for screening, diagnosis, and management of autism for the Ministry of Health of the Slovak Republic.

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Mgr. Katarína Janšáková, PhD.

Molecular biologist, independent researcher In 2013, she completed her studies in Molecular Biology at the Faculty of Science, Comenius University in Bratislava. She completed her doctoral studies at the Institute of Molecular Biomedicine with a focus on saliva and oxidative stress in inflammatory diseases. During her doctoral studies, she completed a one-year internship at the Dental Institute, King's College London, where she worked with a team specializing in saliva research. After graduating in 2017, she joined the team of the Institute of Physiology as a researcher. Within the Academic Research Center for Autism, she is involved in several projects related to autism spectrum disorders, but especially the analysis of hormones, the path of their production, the so-called steroidogenesis and the factors that influence this production.

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RNDr. Klaudia Kyselicová, PhD.

Anthropologist, teacher, currently on maternity leave She completed her Master degree in Anthropology at the Comenius University, Faculty of Natural Sciences. At the Academic Research Center for Autism (ARCA), she meets children with autism spectrum disorders on a daily basis, her topic of interest is physical signs of autism developmental disorder on the basis of anthropometric data. The aim of her research is to find suitable biomarkers that would facilitate and speed up the diagnosis of children at an early age; even with non-standard approaches - taking fingerprints and examining their specifics or measuring the lengths and ratios of individual fingers.

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Mgr. Gabriela Repiská, PhD.

She graduated from the Department of Biology at the Faculty of Natural Sciences of the University of Constantine the Philosopher in Nitra. She completed her postgraduate studies in 2015 at the Faculty of Medicine of Comenius University in Bratislava in the field of Normal and Pathological Physiology. During her studies, she completed a research stay abroad focused on extracellular vesicles at the Krefting Research Center, Gothenburg University in Sweden. She focuses on research into the molecular genetic basis and diagnostics of various diseases. Within the Academic Research Center for Autism, she is primarily engaged in research into genetic and epigenetic predictors of autism spectrum disorders, their role in ASD pathomechanisms and relationships with psychological-behavioural parameters.

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MUDr. Ivan Szadvári, PhD.

Doctor, expert assistant He graduated from the 1^st Medical Faculty of Charles University in Prague with a degree in general medicine and completed postgraduate studies in Brno at the Faculty of Medicine of Masaryk University in the field of physiology and pathological physiology. He currently works as an Assistant Professor at the Institute of Physiology, Comenius University in Bratislava. As part of his scientific activities, he collaborates on research projects that address the etiology of autism.

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Assoc. prof. Aleksandra Tomova, MD, PhD.

She graduated from Sechenov University (Moscow Medical Academy IM Sechenov) in the Russian Federation in general medicine. Subsequently, she completed an internship as a doctor in Bulgaria, and further specialized in the field of dermatology and venereology. She obtained the PhD degree at the Research Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology at the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences. She completed a postdoctoral fellowship at New York Medical College, USA, where she studied the expression and regulation of bacterial genes, as well as  antibiotic resistance genes. For the last 9 years, she has been studying the role of the intestinal microbiota on gastrointestinal  and behaviour manifestations in children with autism spectrum disorders.

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Ing. Jana Paulusová

Our team of laboratory technicians takes care of the biological samples, their processing, storage and registration. Jana Paulusová, who studied analytical chemistry, has been a part of ARCA team since 2020.

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Ing. Katarína Gronová

In 2002 she graduated from the University of Economics in Bratislava. Already during her studies, she worked as a marketing specialist in the ČSOB financial group, leasing. Since 2013, she has been the mother of a child with special needs. From the field of marketing and finance, the professional focus was redirected to helping parents of children with the rare multisystem disease Tuberous Sclerosis within the Association of Tuberous Sclerosis Slovakia. Since 2019, she has been working as the coordinator of the Academic Research Center for Autism. She is the first contact person in our center.