Team Members
Sotiris Marinos
Sotiris is the Team Leader and Wet Lab member of iGEM Crete 2022 team. Throughout the project he took part in brainstorming sessions, observed the project’s process and organized the team's moves. As the Head of Wet Lab for iGEM Crete 2021 team, Sotiris played a crucial role for the project’s experiment planning and execution. Lastly, he was in constant contact with team’s supervisors to inform them about the project’s progress and get both feedback and advice from them to smoothly proceed in the project’s completion.
Kiriakos Mavridis
Kiriakos came up with the project idea and performed the experimental design, so it comes to fruition. As the head of the Wet lab, he scheduled the experiments to fit into the time frame and ensured a healthy environment for the coordinated efforts of the wet lab members. He was also in charge of the execution of the experimental procedures as well as literature investigations.
Chrysanthi Ioanna Psarologaki
Chrysianna is a 4th year undergraduate biology student. As the head of Human Practices of this year’s team, she ensured that the project was beneficial and responsible to society, while developing a thorough understanding of the factors that would affect the design and application of our diagnostic in the field. Moreover, she promoted the project by representing us in numerous events, organizing educational activities, collaborating with other iGEM teams and reaching out to relevant scientists to help guide our project in the right direction.
George Angelakis
As a member of the iGEM Crete 2021 team as well, George’s experience allowed him to aid beyond his assigned role. In addition to fundraising and contacting stakeholders, George aided in promoting the project, editing of media, conducting secondary experiments, running bioinformatics analyses and drafting a solid implementation strategy. Lastly, he actively partook in our team’s visit to Thessaloniki for our team’s partnership.
Sofia Chatziavraam
3rd year Biology student at the University of Crete. Social Media was her responsibility and her joy all this time. She was always ready to keep the social media world updated with every action and event our team did. Moreover, communication with the other iGEM teams was one of her main priorities in order to ensure the best possible contact with the Community!
Christina Chatzichrysou
Christina is currently enrolled in her 3rd year of biology studies at University of Crete. As a member of the fundraising team, her primary tasks were communicating with potential sponsors, resolving their bureaucratic issues and maintaining a healthy communication with the funding department of the university. Furthermore, her creative ideas contributed in designing social media posts and our team’s stickers as well as in organizing the team’s events.
Apostolia-Ioli Diamanti
She has just completed her undergraduate studies in the Biology Department at the University of Crete (UoC). Ioli is a member of the Wet lab and her work in the team is focused on the brainstorming sessions and the conduction of the biological experiments. Moreover, she is part of the weekly meetings that aim to update the whole team on the progress of each group and to assign new responsibilities to each member.
Despoina Lazaridou
Despoina is a 3rd-year Biology student at the University of Crete. Throughout the project's execution, Despoina was a member of the wet lab and was in charge of safety. She was involved in the brainstorming process and ensured to acquire the parts needed for the experiments. During team meetings, she was an interface between the wet lab and the rest of the team, and she participated in integrated meetings with specialized academics to improve and solve any problems that arose from laboratory procedures.
Aikaterini Eirini Zacharia
4th year undergraduate student of Biology at the University of Crete. Involved in the fundraising team, she was responsible among others for finding potential sponsors and communicating on a monthly basis with them in order to update them for our team’s news. Her contribution was focused on the general financial strengthening of the team in different ways and the co-writing of specific parts of the wiki.
Maria Efthymia Banou
4th year biology undergraduate student. As a member of the Human Practices Team Maria ensured that all the goals that the team had set would be met. She played a significant role in the process of organizing educational activities in order to create a bridge between the concept of synthetic biology and the different social groups.Additionally, she contributed in the collaboration with other teams and the participation in activities held by IGEM Community in order for the team to be actively present.
Johnny Petrosian
Johnny is a 4th year undergraduate biology student and a member of the Human Practices team. He consulted researchers to help improve our project and visited schools and the Natural History Museum to educate the local community about our project, the competition and the concept of synthetic biology. In addition, he developed a mini-game to communicate the project in a fun way and wrote an article about our team for the public press.
Isidoros Chatzichysos
Isidoros is now a 4th Computer Science student. He planned and created a lot of the wiki page's components in his capacity as the leader of Dry Lab. He also helped with the team's visual presentation on Instagram and in several other postings. Lastly, he also updated the team's logo, which was also utilized to create promotional stickers.
Babis Digos
Babis is currently enrolled in his 4th year of Computer Science studies. As a member of the dry lab team, he used another javascript framework to arrange and put the team's wiki's logic and structure in place. He also designed the base of the wiki page as well as some social posts. He also made a significant contribution by offering a variety of design suggestions.
Aris Logothetis
Aris has recently become a biologist graduating from University of Crete. He participated in the wet lab team, helping with the experimental design and the troubleshooting. As a member of the wet lab he worked to fulfill the project's goals.He represented the team in various meetings, explaining the aims of the project as well as providing useful help in the fundraising of the team. Finally,he contributed a small part in the integrated human practices process.
Principal Investigators
Professor Panagiotis Sarris
Our Primary PI is Professor Panagiotis Sarris who for a second year in a row actively supported the team’s endeavors in every available way. He graciously provided us with the required equipment and lab space and was always available for any questions or problems we faced along the way. Prof Sarris received his PhD at University of Crete (2004-2009) where he analyzed the roles of bacterial secretory systems during host colonization in the field of Molecular Pathogen-Host Interactions. Starting from 2011 until late 2015 he was a Senior Research Associate at the University of East Anglia and in 2015 he was elected as Associate Professor of Molecular Microbiology and Plant Immunity, at the University of Exeter, (School of Biosciences), where he remains until today as Honorary Professor. In September 2017 he was elected as Principal Researcher at the Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology (IMBB) of Foundation for Research and Technology - Hellas (FORTH), while also serving as an Affiliated Professor of Microbiology in the University of Crete.
Professor Anna Mitraki
Our secondary PI is Prof. Anna Mitraki. Prof Mitraki was of invaluable help along the way helping us navigate the intricate waters of biochemistry that our project entailed. She moreover, through her decades of expertise in matters of administration, significantly helped us organize our efforts. Lastly her keen eye and expertise were primordial to every troubleshooting session we had throughout the year. Prof. Anna Mitraki received her PhD in Biochemistry from Universite de Paris-Sud, Orsay, France in 1986 for her work on enzyme folding, assembly and aggregation while she has worked for 7 years as a Postdoctoral associate and Research Scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, U.S.A. Since September 2004 she serves as a Professor in the Department of Materials Science and Technology, University of Crete, Greece and is an Affiliated Research Scientist with the Institute for Electronic Structure and Laser, FORTH).
Advisors
Stavros Skrepetos
Stavros is a M.S.c. student in Material Science at University of Crete. He is currently studying on the fabrication of 3D mechanical metamaterials and nanostructures on a large scale, with applications on tissue and immuno engineering at FORTH/IESL. As a former member of iGEM Crete he was a jack of all trades in the 2022 team. His large area of expertise, combined with his previous experiment was primordial in our team’s journey. Stavros helped us brainstorm our project’s idea, plan out the experiments needed, troubleshoot problems in the wet and dry lab, organize local events in the framework of human practices and reach out to sponsors and various other stakeholders.
Outsourced Help
Dr. Christos Christakis
Dr. Christos Christakis is a Post-Doc Researcher at the University of Crete. His expertise in microbiology and ecology was of the utmost importance throughout our team’s journey. His valuable feedback since the concept’s realization helped a long way in shaping our project as it is today. Moreover, with his ideas,through countless conversations,he helped us grasp and expand upon the true limits of our project.
Mrs. Dimitra Tsakiri
Mrs Dimitra Tsakiri is a PhD student at the University of Crete, Department of Biology. She was of great help in helping us design various needed primers and was an important addition to many brainstorming and troubleshooting sessions.
Mr. Kostas Kotsaridis
Mr Kostas Kotsaridis is a PhD student at the University of Crete, Department of Biology. His expertise in protein folding and prediction has been very impactful on our target molecules. Every aspect of our bioinformatics work has stemmed, in one way or another, by his guidance.
Dr. Vassiliki A. Michalopoulou
Dr. Vassiliki Michalopoulou is a Post-Doc Researcher at the University of Crete. Her guidance on plant handling and her troubleshooting efficiency greatly helped our team throughout the year.
Mx. George Nistikakis
George Nistikakis is a PhD student in professor Mitraki’s lab. Their PhD revolves around rational design of bio-inspired protein and peptide materials based on self-assembling natural systems. Their thesis subject combined with their knowledge in protein folding and assembly as well as their use as biomaterials in biomedical applications was of great help regarding how the test kit would actually look and how the detection strip would work.
Mrs. Maria-Theodora Vitiadou
Mrs. Maria Vitiadou was iGEM Crete’s former leader and, as such, she was a great mentor of us along the way. Her experience gained last year, combined with her biological knowledge was a valuable tool for us throughout the year.
Professor Pavlos Pavlidis
Prof. Pavlos Pavlidis, via his position at the Institute of Computer Science (ICS), FORTH, was of great assistance in our team’s efforts to outsource our work to the general public.
Professor Dina Lika
Dina Lika is an Associate Professor in the Department of Biology of the University of Crete. She got her Ph. D. from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. She was of vital importance in navigating through every bureaucratic intricacy involved with our project.
Mrs. Tzovanna Vlataki
Tzovanna Vlataki is one of the secretaries of the Department of Biology of the University of Crete and her help throughout the year was truly invaluable. She was an everyday liaison between the administration and our team and her irreplaceable assistance helped us go a long way.
Mr. Nikos Angelakis
Nikos Angelakis is a journalist, public media expert and local politician that provided valuable insight on how to approach local communities and media to make our project known to the general public.
Mrs. Dorothea Evmorfidou
Mrs Dorothea Evmorfidou is a PhD student in the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and is also the instructor of iGEM Thessaloniki. She was extremely helpful during our team’s visit to Thessaloniki in the frame of our partnership’s realization.
Mr. Spiros Daoulas
Mr. Spiros Daoulas, a financial executive in the private sector, was very keen to help us locate and talk to experts on the field of One Health and Medicine
Mr. Dimitrios Plantzounakis
Mr. Dimitrios Plantzounakis obtains an active and energetic position in land cultivation and was very happy to share his thoughts on the project, as well as to help us communicate with other agriculturists and virologists.
Mrs. Angela Christaki
Mrs. Angela Christaki is a junior high school principal, an english teacher at the Hellenic Mediterranean University and an academic author. She was very helpful and supportive during our contact and the web meeting with her school.
Mrs Papadaki Maria
Mrs Papadaki Maria, the biology teacher of the Chandras junior high school expressed her vivid interest in our research, posed some questions and invited us to present the kit to her students.