Research Team
PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATORS
Thanos Dailianis is an Assistant Researcher at IMBBC-HCMR in the field of marine invertebrate biology and biotechnological applications. His research focuses on the biology of sponges and their adaptation to environmental gradients, the ecology of coastal habitats including their conservation and restoration, and the exploration and monitoring of marine biodiversity. He is head of the Scientific Diving Unit and the Biodiversity Laboratory of IMBBC. As the coordinator of MACCIMO, Dr Dailianis administers the project, promotes smooth synergies within the research team and facilitates the progress of foreseen tasks. Moreover, as leader of WP1, he oversees all relevant dissemination actions and the synthesis of the project’s outcomes and results.
Eva Chatzinikolaou is a research fellow at IMBBC-HCMR, investigating the effects of climate change and ocean acidification on marine gastropods using controlled experimental design, micro-computed tomography (micro-CT), geometric morphometrics and behavioural experiments. Her interests also include marine biodiversity, intertidal ecology, population dynamics, marine pollution and environmental protection. Published >50 scientific articles and book chapters. Editor and reviewer in >25 journals; expert evaluator in EU proposals. Has wide experience on project management and implementation (leader in 8, participant in 16). She is the scientific coordinator of the ERFI RI LifewatchGreece. Has organised environmental education and citizen science awareness actions. Within MACCIMO, she will contribute to the experimental set-up and implementation of experiments (WP2) and investigate the morphological shell characteristics (WP3).
Panos Grigoriou is a research technician at CretAquarium (HCMR). He has studied the effect of different biotic and abiotic parameters on the oxygen consumption rate of various marine animals. Has wide experience on animal rearing under laboratory conditions, investigating different growth conditions, physiology and reproduction. His current research focuses on climate change, ocean acidification and coral rearing. Within MACCIMO, Dr Grigoriou will contribute to the experimental set up and implementation of experiments (WP2) and will investigate the metabolic rate as a result of different experimental treatments (WP4).
Anastasia Gioti is a research fellow at IMBBC-HCMR, where she studies fungal symbioses and biodiversity in marine environments. Anastasia holds a B.Sc. in Biology (NKUA, GR), a MSc. and a PhD in Genomics (University Paris-XI, FR) and an additional diploma in Bioinformatics (Institut Pasteur, FR). She has broad experience in microbiology, computational biology, and evolution, having served as project member, coordinator, principal investigator and Ass. Professor for Horizon2020 and national research programs in a number of institutes around the world (UCL-EBI, Uppsala University, Karolinska Institute-SciLifeLab, University California Riverside, University of Crete, American Farm School). Within MACCIMO, Dr. Gioti will coordinate the molecular work and perform all bioinformatics and statistical analyses for the study of microsymbiotic communities (WP6).
Jon Bent Kristoffersen is a research fellow at IMBBC-HCMR. He has participated as a project member in international and national research programs. He has 10 years of experience in Next Generation Sequencing (NGS), and has been managing the IMBBC NGS laboratory since 2014. His main expertise is in NGS sequencing techniques, especially microbial diversity and metabarcoding with environmental DNA, with broad experience in all steps from study design, library construction strategies, sequencing, and data analysis. Within MACCIMO, Dr Kristoffersen will construct amplicon libraries and perform NGS sequencing for the identification of microsymbiotic communities in the frame of WP6.
Elisavet Kaitetzidou is a molecular biologist at IMBBC-HCMR, occupied in the understanding of the expression and transcriptional regulation processes of animal genes/genomes and their phenotypic signature. She has been working with gene expression of marine organisms during her undergraduate studies, her master and her PhD thesis. Her research interests include transcriptional response of organisms under physiological processes such as development and physiological challenges, such as thermal stress, nutritional and immunological stimulations. Within MACCIMO, Dr Kaitetzidou will be responsible for WP5 on the assessment of gene expression. Her experience in relevant studies will allow the accomplishment of the preparatory phase as well as the implementation of all WP tasks, from total RNA extraction to the analysis of the results.
Niki Keklikoglou is a PhD student with an MSc in Environmental Biology and Management of Terrestrial and Marine Biological Resources. Her main research interests include marine biodiversity focusing on benthic invertebrates, ecology, micro-computed tomography (micro-CT), ocean acidification and coastal light pollution. She has authored 32 scientific publications and participated in more than 30 conferences. She has actively participated in several research projects, including FP7 European projects, Horizon 2020, ENPI CBC-MED, INTERREG and national projects. She is the principal investigator for HCMR in three projects (2 European and 1 national project). Within MACCIMO, Niki Keklikoglou will be responsible for assessment of morphological characters in WP3. She will establish the methodological protocols regarding the specimen preparation, micro-CT scanning and the 3D analysis.
Nikos Papandroulakis is a Research Director at IMBBC-HCMR, focused on the improvement of marine aquaculture methodologies and technologies and the use of mathematical models of fish growth and food consumption towards the development of automated management systems in hatcheries and cage farms. Has published 4 book chapters and more than 100 papers in scientific journals. Coordinator or partner in 34 National and EU projects. He has participated as lecturer of Master’s and PhD courses on aquaculture at the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria and since 2016 at the “Erasmus+ Joint Master Degree in Aquaculture Environment and Society”. Within MACCIMO, Dr Papandroulakis will supervise the use of the metabolic chamber infrastructure in the framework of WP4.
SCIENTIFIC ASSOCIATES
Thanos Anastasiadis is a technician Ichthyologist with Msc Sustainable fisheries, and aquaculture (University of Patras, GR) and holds a B.Sc. in Ichthyology (University of Patras, GR). His current research focuses on predation, climate change, and ocean acidification in invertebrates. His main expertise is his experience in animal rearing under laboratory conditions. Also, his research focuses on investigating different growth conditions, physiology, and reproduction. Within MACCIMO, he will contribute to the experimental set-up and implementation of experiments (WP2) and will also contribute to the metabolic experiments (WP4).
Georgia Tarifa is a PhD student (University of Crete), also currently working at Genetics lab, IMBBC-HCMR. Her main expertise is in the application of metabarcoding techniques in microbial ecology and investigation of environmental and host-associated microbiomes. Her research work also includes bioinformatic processing of NGS data down to the final multivariate statistical evaluations. Within MACCIMO she will optimize DNA extraction protocols for the animals and rearing water samples, perform sampling, extract DNA from the samples. Additionally, she will develop and optimize PCR protocols for successful amplification in the frame of WP6 task of the identification of microsymbiotic communities.
STUDENTS
WEBSITE & PROJECT OUTREACH
Irene Filiopoulou is a web and mobile developer at IMBBC-HCMR. She received her BSc and MSc degree in the fields of Information Systems and E-commerce Technologies in Computer Science Department from the University of Crete. She has worked in the Multimedia Laboratory at the University Of Crete as a mobile developer and in the Transformation Service Laboratory, also at University of Crete, where she has been involved in several projects. She has taught informatics lessons at Technological Educational Institute of Crete as an external laboratory partner . Within MACCIMO, she will create and develop the website project and database.