THE BOARD - WHO WE ARE

Professor Spyros Kintzios (Director), Rector of the Agricutural University of Athens, is heading the Laboratory of Cell Technology, Faculty of Biotechnology, Agricultural University of Athens. He holds a Ph.D. in Genetics from the Technical University of Munich. He has a working experience of over 28 years in Biotechnology, particularly in the fields of Biosensors and Cell Biology. He is the author or co-author of 110 peer-reviewed articles in cited international scientific journals, as well as the author or co-author of more than 90 international book chapters and conference presentations. He is also the editor of five international books, a fellow of several Scientific Societies and the recipient of several awards. He is the inventor of the Bioelectric Recognition Assay (BERA) and the technology of Molecular Identification through Membrane Engineering (MIME). He is reviewer of submitted manuscripts in more than 30 international scientific journals and a board member of two journals. He was also a reviewer for European projects of the 6th framework and Horizon 2020, the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Austrian Science Fund and the New Zealand Ministry of Business, Innovation & Employment (MBIE) projects. He has coordinated and co-coordinated 30 EU and internationally funded research projects. Following the reception of the International Venture Capital Forum Award for the Best Biotech Start-Up company (2004), Professor Kintzios founded EMBIO Diagnostics, a Cypriot biotech spin-off, which he directed until 2011. Dr. Kintzios has also participated to the foundation of the Hellenic Biotechnology Cluster (HBio) and the Hellenic Society for Nanotechnological Applications in Medicine and Health Science (HSnanoHS/ELENEPY). He is a permanent member of several public and industry committees in Greece and abroad, including the Hellenic Agricultural Academy (elected full member).

Professor Epaminondas J. Paplomatas (Member) is a Professor in the laboratory of Plant Pathology and (from 2010 until now) Vice Rector for Academic Affairs and Personnel at the Agricultural University of Athens. He has a Bs/Msc degree from the Agricultural University of Athens and a PhD in Plant Pathology from the University of California, Davis, U.S.A. He has over twenty-five years’ experience in Plant Pathology and Biotechnology of plant pathogenic microorganisms with special interest in biological control of soilborne pathogens and plant-pathogen interactions. He is the author of 59 refereed papers (h-index=18, 1005 citations excluding self-citations of all authors), 18 full conference papers and over 180 conference abstracts of oral and poster presentations in international and national meetings. He has been the scientific coordinator of 26 competitive and 21 national projects funded by the EU or National Organizations. He has participated in 60 international and 30 national congresses, group meetings and workshops. He has been invited speaker in 19 conferences, has chaired 6 sessions and he has served as member of scientific and/or organizing committees (in national and international conferences). He is member of the Verticillium International Steering Committee and he has been member of the scientific and organizing committee of the 10th International Verticillium Symposium, 16-20 November 2009, Corfu, Greece and the of XVI International Congress on Molecular Plant-Microbe Interactions, July 6 - 10, Rhodes, Greece. He has reviewed over 60 articles for peer reviewed scientific journals and he is senior editor of Phytopathologia Mediterranea journal. He has been the recipient of the following awards: The Dennis H. Hall Award, Department of Plant Pathology, University of California, Davis, June 1991; Nonresident Tuition Fee Fellowship, University of California, Davis, Fall 1989; Fulbright Scholarship, The Fulbright Foundation, Athens, Greece, 1987-1988 academic year; Academic Performance Scholarship, The National Scholarships Foundation, Athens, Greece, 1978-1979 academic year. He has visited for scientific and educational purposes the following organizations: Wageningen University-the Netherlands, Institute ?f Sustainable Agriculture-CSIC Cordoba Spain, Yunnan Academy of Forestry-China, Dipartimento di Biologia e Patologia Vegetale of Universita degli Studi di Bari-Italy, Research Unit Glasshouse Horticulture of Applied Plant Research Institute-Naaldwijk the Netherlands, Servicio de Investigacion Agroalimentaria Zaragoza-Spain, Institut National de la Resherche Agronomique-Dijon Spain, Catholic University of Leuven-Belgium, Uppsala Genetics Center at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Horticultural Research Laboratory at Vero Beach Florida-USA, Pennsylvania State University-USA, Olive Tree Institute-Sfax Tunisia, University of Algarve-Faro Portugal, University of Tuscia-Viterbo Italy. He is member of the following scientific societies: American Phytopathological Society, Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Society, The Hellenic Phytopathological Society, Mediterranean Phytopathological Union, The Hellenic Society for Biotechnology.

Professor Stavros Zografakis (Member), Deputy Rector for Economic Planning, Research and Development. Associate Professor, Department of Agricultural Economics and Rural Development, School of Food, Biotechnology & Development. He has a Bachelor of Science degree (BSc) (1985) and a Ph.D. (1997) from the Department of Economic Sciences of the National and Capodistrian University of Athens. His academic and professional interests are in the areas of general equilibrium models, social account matrices, income distribution, Inequality and Poverty, Migration, Consumer Prices and International Competitiveness. He has lectured at the Department of Economics of the University of Patras. He has worked as an adviser at the Economic Office of the Prime Minister, of the Minister of Employment and Social Security (on employment and social exclusion issues) and of the Assistant Minister of External Affairs. He is currently teaching Theory and Policies of International Trade, Macroeconomic Theory and Political Economy.

Professor Costas Yialouris (Member), Informatics Laboratory, Department of Agricultural Economics and Rural Development in the Agricultural University of Athens. His research activity includes Expert Systems, Knowledge Engineering in problems concerning bio and earth sciences, Artificial Neural Networks and Knowledge Management. He has significant experience in knowledge engineering, in developing Expert Systems in the Agricultural area and in developing Artificial Neural Networks and other Classifiers for pattern recognition in complicated problems in Biotechnology . He has participated in national and European research projects. He has also been the leader of a post doc research program funded by the Greek Ministry of Education and EU for the development of an intelligent system for the identification of plant viruses based on biosensors and artificial neural networks. He is reviewer of several international journals. He has written 7 books on Informatics (in Greek). He has also published his research work in more than 85 papers in International Journal papers and in international peer reviewed Conferences. His published research has got a significant number of references.

Associate Professor Panagiotis Skandamis (Member). Dr. Panagiotis N. Skandamis is Associate Professor of Food Microbiology and Food Quality Control and Food Hygiene in the Agricultural University of Athens and member of the BIOHAZ panel of European Food Safety Authority (EFSA). He received his Bachelor Degree on Food Science & Technology and a PhD on Food Microbiology by Agricultural University of Athens (AUA). He has worked as a post-doctoral fellow in the Department of Animal Science of Colorado State University in USA. In 2004, he joined the Department of Food Science & Technology of AUA, teaching Food Microbiology and Food Quality Control and Hygiene. Prof. Skandamis has authored 104 original research papers in journals of SCI, 26 book chapters and has a total number of 4400 citations (h-index 30). His research is funded by 5th, 6th and 7th EU Framework Program, National Grants and direct contracts with the Greek Food Industry in the following areas: (i) active antimicrobial and intelligent packaging of foods; (ii) assessment of microbial food spoilage; (iii) survival/growth of pathogens, with emphasis on the adaptive response to food-related stresses, (iv) biofilm formation and removal by chemical and natural disinfectants, (iii) predictive microbiology of foods and quantitative microbial risk assessment, (v) application of mild preservation technologies and antimicrobial interventions; (vi) detection, isolation and subtyping of foodborne pathogens from foods and food processing environments and (vii) ecology of mycotoxin-producing fungi. He has worked as Associate Editor of Food Research International (division Food Quality and Safety) and he is currently serving as scientific co-editor of Journal of Food protection and member of the Editorial Board of Applied and Environmental Microbiology and International Journal of Food Microbiology. Predictive Modeling software development: Dr. Skandamis has also developed a Predictive Modelling Software tool, entitled GroPIN, which constitutes a database of 400 kinetic and probabilistic models for pathogens and spoilage organisms in response to a variety of intrinsic and extrinsic foods parameters (e.g., T, pH, aw, preservatives, atmosphere, etc.). GroPIN is capable of simulating microbial growth and inactivation under static and dynamic processing and distribution conditions along the food chain, both deterministically and stochastically, via Monte Carlo simulation. The software is publicly available along with a detailed user guide at the following address: http://www.aua.gr/psomas/gropin/

Dr. Sophia Mavrikou (Secretary) is a post-doctoral researcher at LCT, holding a M.Sc. in Biotechnology and a PhD in Cell-based Biosensors. She has working experience on food safety especially in the fields of in-vitro toxicology, analytical techniques (i.e. LC-MS) and the development of electrochemical and cell based biosensors for the detection of food contaminants (pesticides and mycotoxins). She is the author or co-author of several peer-reviewed articles in cited international scientific journals, as well as the author or co-author of many conference presentations.