Careers (of our Students)

Nikolaos Delkis graduated from the Department of Biochemistry and Biotechnology in 2020. During his BSc studies, he participated in iGEM Thessaly (2019), an interdisciplinary synthetic biology student team, winning several awards and nominations for a field diagnostic test for tuberculosis (ODYSSEE). He was also awarded a scholarship from the American Society of Plant Biologists (ASPB) (ASPB-Conviron Scholarship 2020) to develop soft and leadership skills. He continued his postgraduate studies in the Department, in the MSc program “Advanced Computational and Experimental Biosciences", from which he graduated in 2022. During that time, he supervised the next iGEM Thessaly teams (2020, 2021) as an advisor and instructor and was an active member of the iGEM Engineering Committee, an international and interdisciplinary cohort of scientists aiming to make engineering biology more streamlined and accessible. During both his BSc and MSc theses, he worked with Prof. Kalliope Papadopoulou on synthetic biology projects concerning plants and fungi. Today, he is a PhD student at VIB-UGent Center for Plant Systems Biology in Ghent, Belgium, studying the crosstalk of hormones and light in plants, and its potential application to increase crop productivity. His interests include plant synthetic biology and metabolic engineering, as well as optimization of the DBTL (Design-Build-Test-Learn) cycle, in the computational (Design/Learn) and wet lab aspects (Build).

Afrodite Katsaouni obtained her BSc degree in 2020 from the Department of Biochemistry and Biotechnology. For her BSc thesis, she worked with Prof. Dimitrios Karpouzas at the Laboratory of Plant and Environmental Biotechnology. In 2019, during her undergraduate studies, she participated in the interdisciplinary, iGEM Thessaly 2019 team, which won several nominations and an award in the synthetic biology-oriented iGEM competition, with the project “ODYSSEE; a modular platform for field diagnosis of Tuberculosis”. For her postgraduate studies, she continued in the MSc program “Advanced Computational and Experimental Biosciences” of the Department of Biochemistry and Biotechnology, from which she graduated in 2022 while working with Prof. Kalliope Papadopoulou on RNAi biology of plant-fungal interactions for her MSc thesis. During that time, she supervised two new iGEM Thessaly teams (2021,2022) as an advisor and an instructor. Today, she is a PhD student at VIB-UGent Center for Plant Systems Biology in Ghent, Belgium, at the Rhizosphere group, studying the Autoregulation of Nodulation pathways in Soybeans. She is interested in plant-microbe interactions and synthetic biology.

Maria-Anna Kyrgiafini graduated from the Department of Biochemistry and Biotechnology in 2019. Then, she attended the Department’s postgraduate program “Advanced Experimental and Computational Biosciences” from which she graduated in 2021. From 2021 until today she is a PhD Candidate at the Laboratory of Genetics, Comparative and Evolutionary Biology (University of Thessaly) investigating the role of non-coding RNAs on male infertility. Marianna also works at Averofio Agri-food Technological Park of Thessaly with the aim to promote innovation in the agri-food sector. She has participated in national conferences, is the author of 5 scientific publications (4 of them as first author), and she is a guest editor assistant in scientific journals.

In 2017, she obtained a bachelor's degree from the Department of ‘Biochemistry and Biotechnology’. Her bachelor's thesis was conducted at the Laboratory of ‘Genetics, Comparative and Evolutionary Biology’. Subsequently, she enrolled in the Master's program in the same department, which is called ‘Advanced Experimental and Computational Biosciences’. Her Master's thesis was conducted in the Laboratory of ‘Plant and Environmental Biotechnology’, with Professor K. Papadopoulou as her supervisor. Shortly after graduating in 2019, she began her doctoral studies in the Laboratory of "Plant Molecular Biology and Genetics" at Aarhus University. Her PhD project is part of the ENSA consortium, "Engineering the Nitrogen Symbiosis for Africa," which aims to establish sustainable forms of agriculture. For the past two months, she has been employed as a research assistant in the same laboratory while finalizing her PhD dissertation.

Εvgenia (Jenny) Koukara graduated from this department in 2019. She, then, completed the Master of Science program “Advanced Experimental and Computational Biosciences” from the same department in 2021. During her thesis projects, she optimized a CRISPR/Cas9 system for mutagenesis in the model legume plant Lοtus japonicus. She is currently a 2nd year PhD student in the Laboratory of Plant and Environmental Biotechnology studying the role of triterpenes in the interactions of Lotus japonicus with beneficial endophytes, under the supervision of Prof. Kalliope Papadopoulou. Her main interests are in plant biotechnology (DNA cloning, genome editing, plant transformation) and plant synthetic biology. Jenny has a peer-reviewed publication and has attended the CEPLAS/IPK summer school in 2022 and the 13ο Panhellenic conference of the Hellenic Society of Bio-scientists, presenting her work in oral and poster sessions.

Marialena obtained her BSc and MSc degrees from the Department of Biochemistry and Biotechnology, University of Thessaly, Greece. During her undergraduate studies, she early joined the Plant and Environmental Biotechnology laboratory under the supervision of A/Prof Papadopoulou and she continued her BSc thesis there. Designing a protocol for the successful transformation of a non-model legume plant, Trigonella Phoenum-greacum was among the critical skills she gained, along with high-quality lab experience. Her work and contribution to the lab were reflected in the four scientific publications that she co-authored. After completion of her undergraduate studies, Marialena joined the “Advanced Experimental and Computational Biosciences” MSc course in the same department. Her MSc thesis project introduced her to the fascinating world of structural biology, by joining the Structural and Functional Biochemistry Laboratory under the supervision of Professor Leonidas. Her project included the characterization of human angiogenin interactions with DDX39B and DDX39A, key enzymes in tumorigenesis. Marialena is currently a 1st year PhD candidate at the Bio21 Institute of the University of Melbourne, with an Australian Government funded scholarship from the “ARC Centre for Cryo-EM of Membrane Proteins”. Her main PhD thesis project, as a member of the Parker lab, is focused on studying a transmembrane protein involved in Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI). Marialena will investigate the structure of that protein in the presence of inhibitors by Cryo-EM, crystallography, and other biophysical/biochemical approaches with the aim of discovering drugs for treating TBI, for which there are currently only poor treatment options.

She graduated from the Department of Biochemistry and Biotechnology in 2020 and from the Master's program "Advanced Experimental and Computational Biosciences" of the Department of Biochemistry and Biotechnology in 2022. In 2022, she received an academic scholarship in support of educational activities at the Department of Biochemistry and Biotechnology of the University of Thessaly. In December 2022 she presented her research work at two scientific conferences: "the 72nd Congress of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology" and "the 13th Congress of the Panhellenic Union of Bioscientists". She is currently a PhD candidate in the Department of Biochemistry and Biotechnology on the topic of "Functional Analysis of Regulation and of the Role of Non-coding RNAs in gastric carcinogenesis''