I'm fascinated by the idea that some of the most consequential tools in modern science came out of microorganisms. DNA polymerase — the enzyme that powers every PCR machine on Earth — was first isolated from a heat-loving bacterium living in a hot spring. CRISPR-Cas9 started as a bacterial immune system before it became a gene-editing revolution. Microbes have been quietly solving problems for billions of years; a lot of what we call biotechnology is really just learning to ask them the right questions.
My own way in was photosynthesis. During my Master's, I was the one in the lab synthesizing and isolating natural products from microalgae and cyanobacteria — slow, manual, hands-on work. At some point it clicked: what if the microbes did the synthesis themselves? Cyanobacteria already harvest sunlight, fix carbon, and build complex molecules for a living. The interesting question isn't how to extract more from them — it's how to program them: turn genes on and off on demand, coordinate populations, divide labor across species, build co-cultures that produce things no single organism could. That's the world I want to help build — one where a bioreactor of engineered microbes can make a drug, a biomaterial, or a delivery system, scalably, without needing constant external inducers or expensive inputs. My PhD in the Ducat Lab at Michigan State was a step in that direction.
Across nine years of grant-funded research at Michigan State, the University of Crete, and a visiting position at the University of Düsseldorf, I've designed and constructed 30+ genetic vectors, developed validated extraction protocols for LC-MS/MS analysis of 2,000+ samples, and trained teams of researchers in advanced analytical techniques. I've co-authored 10 peer-reviewed publications in journals including Metabolic Engineering, ACS Synthetic Biology, and PLOS Computational Biology, and presented at international conferences in the US and Germany.
I'm now looking to bring that disciplined, solutions-oriented mindset into industry — particularly into pharmaceutical companies, clinical research organizations, biotech, and biomedical research environments. I'm at my best embedded in cross-functional teams where rigorous science meets real-world deployment. Greek and US citizen — fully work-authorized across the EU and the United States.
Although my doctoral work centered on microbial systems, the underlying skill set translates directly to clinical and biomedical applications. Method development and validation under strict QC and SOP frameworks, biomarker quantification via flow cytometry and LC-MS/MS, protocol design across thousands of samples with full data traceability, and team training and supervision are exactly the competencies that pharmaceutical R&D, clinical research, medical affairs, and translational biomedical roles depend on. The biological substrate changes; the analytical rigor, regulatory awareness, and project-execution discipline do not.
