Dimitrios Thanos

Biography

 He studied Biology at the University of Athens (1983) and was awarded a Doctor of Molecular Biology from the University of Crete-Foundation for Research and Technology (FORTH). He was trained at the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology of the University of Harvard, USA (1989-1994), in the field of gene expression regulation, receiving the honorary post-doctoral scholarship Lucille P. Markey. In January 1995 he was appointed Assistant Professor at the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics of Columbia University, New York-USA Medical School, and in 2000 he was promoted to Associate Professor with Permanence. In 2001 he was elected Director of the newly founded Institute of Molecular Biology and Genetics of the Research Center of Biomedical Sciences "Al. Fleming "in Greece. In 2003, he resigned from An Associate Professor at Columbia but continued to teach as an Adjunct Professor until 2015. Since March 2006 he has been Chairman of the Scientific Council and Director of the Center for Basic Research of the Institute of Biomedical Research of the Academy of Athens. He discovered the enhanceosome, the basic molecular switch, which regulates the activity (expression) of genes in humans and other organisms. This discovery, in conjunction with its later research activities in the field of gene expression regulation, has implications for the understanding of fundamental biological processes such as fetal development, stem cell properties, carcinogenicity and explains the causes of the randomness of the immune response to infections with viruses and bacteria, a particularly important discovery to combat infectious diseases. He has published an extensive series of articles in the leading scientific journals of the industry (Cell, Nature, Science, etc.) accompanied by editorial notes. His published work has been around 14. 000 references in the literature corresponding to about 155 reports per academic work on average. His findings are described in detail in all textbooks of molecular and cell biology taught to students of Biology and Medicine in the University of Greece and abroad. Scholar of the Irma T. Hirschl Charitable Trust (1996), Scholar Basil O'Connor March of Dimes (1996), Scholar of the Pew Charitable Trust (1996), Scholar of the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society of America (2000) ), Christopher Lambort Award in Basic Sciences (2001), Dean's Distinguished Lecturer of Columbia University (2002). Member of the European Organization for Molecular Biology (2004) and regular member of the EMBO Board of Directors (2011-2016). Election as a Regular Member of Academia Europaea, Life Sciences and Molecular Biology (2012). He created the first and only one in Greece to date, the Greek Genome Center, a full member of the European Research Council (ERC) research committee in the field of biochemistry, Biophysics and Molecular Biology (2008-2016), National Representative to the European Committee for Research Infrastructure Charter (ESFRI) and to the European Horizon 2020 Training Committee (2014-2020). Member of the Board of Directors of the European Research Infrastructures of Biobanks and Systems Biology. It helped create a new generation of Greek scientists who are leading Universities and Research Centers abroad and Greece.

Research Interest

 Molecular Biology