Nice to know that you want to have a sneak peek of my life. . .
My story
Personal Background
Here I am, Athanasios.
My friends call me either Sakis or Thanos. You can refer to me with any of these two.
I am a biotech-driven scientist who was educated at IHU and DTU and that sometimes thinks about creating quirky biological stuff. I hold myself from doing that ( yet! ), unless there is someone that would want to collaborate with me, and do the next crazy thing in bioengineering together.
I could call my personality as amiable, agreeable, and gregarious. Others recognize me as quick-witted, proactive and diligent. Dreaming, breathing, and experiencing biology is what gives me vitality. Rethinking life, making it amenable to never seen before alterations with an open-eye while pushing the boundaries, is what I aim.
More than two years of research experience in Greece, France, Israel, and Denmark are on my back, to institutions that are known for their scientific output in the world. Currently, I work at PetMedix in beautiful Cambridge where I am part of a team that tries to discover novel antibodies for animal health.
Science writing is my second love. It helps me deconstructing non-easy to digest scientific knowledge, making it available in layman language for everyday people with no science background. The perk is that I gain, at the same time, a lot of know-how for different fields.
Scroll down and read more on my timeline (press the buttons on the right side – or on the bottom in mobile version – to see many more details)…
Born in a rural area in Kozani, Greece. Raised in a small, beautiful village named Eani.
Started my BSc studies in Biomedical Sciences at the International Hellenic University of Thessaloniki, Greece (IHU).
Conducted my first research internship abroad at the Institute Pasteur in Paris, for 6 months, hosted by the lab of Dr. Sven van Teeffelen.
Research visit, for 6 months, at the lab of Dr. Kenn Gerdes, University of Copenhagen-Biocenter
( former BASP Center ).
Awarded the competitive Kupcinet-Getz International Science School Scholarship, summing up to the amount of 1000€ (7500 DKK). I was a member for three months at the lab of Dr. Ilana Kolodking-Gal, at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel.
Start of master level classes attendance in Engineering in Biotechnology at the Technical University of Denmark. Achieving my dream to become part of this university has been a real game changer. With coursework chosen carefully, I aspire to develop myself as a future scientist.
Start of my student research assistant position at DTU, being a member of the "Gut, Microbes and Health" Group. Here - till December of 2019 - I was a member of the "Gut, Microbes and Health" Group, under the supervision of Prof. Egon Bech Hansen.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, I started to write articles, network with local Greek news media owners, and had science writings of mine published to news portals.
Science communication is my sidekick!
At IHU, I learned a whole lot about different scientific realms and the good ethics of treating patients’ biological samples with respectability and attention to detail.
I found out that Microbiology and Biotechnology had the “thing” that enchanted me in each lecture. The other was to observe, under the microscope, stained human tissue from different parts of the body…This Was Equally Fantastic! Histology is, still, a real “scientific crush” for me.
Putting into practice what I learned was something I yearned for. My thesis’ time did not yet come, and I was inspired by a former fellow-bachelor student – my dear Aikaterini – to apply for a research internship. I want to thank her for that long talk we had that evening, back in 2015. It was enormously revelating and cleared out some of the doubts (or personal “demons” someone could say).
During my BSc degree, I had a mandatory internship and a final bachelor thesis project to do. The internship was for 2-months and took place at the private diagnostic lab of Prof. Maria Chatzidimitriou at Thessaloniki.
I was trained into performing analysis of human biological specimens ( e.g blood, urine, and saliva ). Doing antibiograms and examining the antibiotic resistance of the cultivated microorganisms was my most memorable and beloved task.
My BSc thesis was conducted under the supervision of Prof. Phaedra Eleftheriou at the IHU, in Thessaloniki. The subject of my thesis was “Computational prediction of DNA gyrase’s inhibition in the bacterium Escherichia coli by using the Molecular Docking method”. Through a collaboration with the School of Pharmacy, at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, I had to model and investigate the antibacterial properties of 78 chemical compounds. The chemical structures were obtained and transformed into easy-for-biotools-to-read formats. The analysis has shown their docking on amino acids close to the active site of the gyrase and high predicted energy released from their interaction with the enzyme.
Part of this work has resulted in some data being meaningful enough to be published in the journal of MedChemComm, where I was included as one of the authors.
The last 3-month research visit abroad has come with me being selected at the competitive Kupcinet-Getz International Summer Science Research School Program of the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel. Being among the 32 students selected from all around the world, and getting a 1.000 euro fellowship was an unprecedented and special moment for me.
The lab that hosted me during the program was the Assembly and Disassembly of Microbial Biofilms lab, at the Department of Molecular Genetics, led by Prof. Ilana Kolodkin-Gal.
The project Prof. Kolodkin-Gal and I chose to work with, was about the expression level assessment of the skfA (sporulation killing factor A) in Bacillus subtilis. SKF, the extracellular protein product of skfA, can induce the lysis of other surrounding B.subtilis cells when those have not yet entered the sporulation pathway.
As B. subtilis is found on the surface/upper levels of soil, and known to be located in the rhizosphere of plant roots, the delineation of the interplay between this bacterium and the expression of SKF was critical. During growth, the root exudates of various plants ( Solanum lycopersicum, Eruca sativa, and Arabidopsis thaliana ) added to the medium was tested.
B. subtilis biofilms spread on the roots of Eruca sativa was also observed. Fluorescent microscopy has helped to monitor how skfA-gfp expressed in B. subtilis, in a petri dish setting where B. subtilis, the competitor strain B. thurigiensis, and the plant root of Eruca sativa were present.
The aim was to see firsthand how the expression of skfA-gfp is differentiated depending on the physiology and location of the biofilm onto the plant’s root.
Taking master level coursework during my research position at DTU was really fundamental for acquiring new valuable knowledge in biotechnology.
I have chosen a particular study line due to its integrity and fame among previous students of the program. You could, also, build up your specialization if you desire and have a focus depending on courses that align with your interests.
Many courses had a special place in my heart. But, I can distinguish Advanced Prokaryotic Biotechnology, Synthetic Biology, Protein Structure, and Computational Biology.
Of course, I could start rambling about other ones, but I will keep it short! I regard myself as versatile and a bit divergent sometimes. So, if you discuss with me face-to-face ( or internet-face ), you will see that I have a plethora of science geeky stuff to talk about.
Right after the commencement of my master level coursework at the Technical University of Denmark ( a.k.a DTU ) in September 2018, I become a student research assistant at the lab of “Gut, Microbes and Health” which resides at the National Food Institute of Denmark.
My mentor and supervisor for more than a year was Prof. Egon Bech Hansen. As co-PI, Prof. Egon Bech Hansen is sharing the lab’s leadership with Prof. Tine Rask Licht.
The plan was to develop an in-house protocol for an efficient bacterial evolution strategy, with Lactococcus lactis being the strain to-be-evolved.
A collaboration between Aalborg University and DTU – under the umbrella of the PROVIDE project – endeavors to make use of patatin (potato protein), among other food residuals.
Identification of patatin as a very potent residual food protein source, resulted in trying to chop it down to smaller biopeptides, for making it available for use as a food additive.
For this exact reason, I intended to evolve L. lactis with non-GMO methods (Adaptive Laboratory Evolution, UV irradiation, and creation of a novel fastidious growth media protocol).