Dr. Stathis Frillingos is Professor of Biological Chemistry at the University of Ioannina, Department of Medicine, and Director of the Interinstitutional Interdepartmental Programme of Postgraduate Studies in Molecular and Cellular Biology and Biotechnology at the University of Ioannina, Greece (http://msc-mcbb.ac.uoi.gr). His research team focuses on the analysis of structure-function-specificity and evolutionary relationships of membrane transporters, with current emphasis on Solute Carriers responsible for the transmembrane transport of nucleosides, nucleobases and their antimetabolite analogs. His research studies include the functional characterization of new nucleobase/nucleoside transporters from microorganisms and analysis of their binding-site interactions with inhibitors and antimetabolite compounds as potential antimicrobial drugs (http://www.frillingoslab.gr).
Dr. Vassilis Douris is Assistant Professor of Molecular Biology at the University of Ioannina, Department of Biological Applications and Technology. His research team focuses on the analysis of synergistic interactions between molecular mechanisms of insecticide resistance using reverse genetics (CRISPR/Cas9) approaches and functional expression in Drosophila and insect cell-based models, with current emphasis on the potential role of insect chemosensory proteins in insecticide detoxification. His research includes the functional characterization of resistance mutations and detox genes from resistant insects and their employment towards generation of screening platforms for inhibitory compounds to be used as potential synergists (https://www.bri.forth.gr/douris).
Stratos Mylonas studied at the Molecular Biology and Genetics Department at the Democritus University of Thrace in Alexandroupolis and conducted his BSc thesis research at the Immunology lab of Prof. Chris D. Platsoucas at the Temple University of Philadelphia. He was accepted at the EMBL International PhD program and joined the lab of Dr. Dmitri Svergun at EMBL Hamburg, Germany focusing on method development and structural analysis of flexible proteins using Small Angle Scattering. After his PhD, he joined the lab of Dr Naoto Yagi at Spring-8, JASRI, Japan working on the structural analysis and simulations of surfactant assemblies, as potential gene delivery systems, and DNA polypods working mostly in collaboration with the group of Prof. Kazuo Sakurai at the University of Kitakyushu. He, then, worked at the lab of Prof. Michael Kokkinidis at IMBB-FORTH in Heraklion, Crete and was involved in several projects including a protein folding model protein, designing enzymes with new specificities, non-coding RNAs and bacterial Type III Secretion Systems. He will soon join the Department of Chemistry at University of Ioannina as an Assistant Professor of Biochemistry. He is interested in the structural analysis of biological macromolecules, combining information from experimental and computational methods for the better understanding of structure-function relations.