Scientific Board
Chair of the DepartmentGermany
Biography
Professor. Markus Sauer studied Chemistry at the University of Heidelberg where he received his Diploma in 1991 and finished his PhD 1995 in Physical Chemistry. 1998 he has been awarded the BioFuture Prize for Detection, Analysis and Handling of Single Molecules, which allowed him to establish his own group for single-molecule fluorescence detection and single-molecule DNA sequencing. Since 2009 he is Professor and Chair of the Department of Biotechnology and Biophysics at the Julius Maximilian University Würzburg. His research interests are single-molecule fluorescence spectroscopy and imaging with a particular focus on super-resolution fluorescence imaging by direct stochastic optical reconstruction microscopy (dSTORM) and its applications in structural biology, immunology, host-pathogen interactions, and cancer immunotherapies. A couple of years ago he started to combine refined super-resolution and expansion microscopy methods to push the limits and pave the way for true molecular resolution. He has published more than 280 journal papers and coordinates several super-resolution microscopy based projects.
USA
Biography
Dr. Marchetti, tumor and molecular biologist, is an international authority in the characterization of patient-isolated Circulating Tumor Cells (CTCs), CTC biomarkers, and CTC testing implementing “liquid biopsy” concepts as clinically useful tools to combat cancer metastasis. With keen insights into the biology of brain metastasis, he pioneered discovery of CTC signatures underlying brain metastasis and biomarker properties of brain-homing/brain-associated CTCs. Dr. Marchetti’s bibliography include 185 publications. He has received numerous awards and secured uninterrupted funding for 28 years from federal, state, institutional and private agencies. He is a reviewer for the most prominent journals in cancer research and sits on numerous editorial boards. Dr. Marchetti graduated from the University of Pavia (Italy) in 1979. He worked as postdoctoral fellow, then Instructor at MD Anderson Cancer Center (1992-1999), Assistant Professor at UT-Houston (1999-2001), Associate Professor, then tenured Professor at LSU-Baton Rouge (2002-2007), endowed “Jack. L. Titus” tenured Professor at Baylor College of Medicine (2008-2015), Director of the Biomarker Research Program at Houston Methodist (2015-2019), then joined the University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center as Professor and Director of Junior Faculty development/UNM Comprehensive Cancer Center.
Greece
Biography
Prof. George Koliakos was born in Thessaloniki Greece (January 1956). He is graduate of medicine at the Medical School Aristotle University (MD 1979) and has a doctoral degree in Biochemistry from the same school (1983). He specialized in Nuclear medicine (1987). He served as a postdoctoral associate at the medical school of the university of Minessota USA (1987-1989) and was a visiting research professor at the university of Miami USA (1993). Since 1989 he is a faculty member of the Medical School Aristotle University currently serving as a full professor of Biochemistry (since 2012), Director of the Department of Biological sciences and Preventive Medicine and Director of the Postgraduate Master Degree Program Of the Medical School Aristotle University “Stem cells and Regenerative Medicine”. Editor in Chief of the Aristotle Biomedical Journal since 2018. He is currently President of the Hellenic Society for the study of Regenerative Medicine. He also served as Director of the Clinical Biochemistry Laboratory AHEPA University Hospital Thessaloniki (2015-2017) and Director of the Laboratory of Biochemistry Medical School Aristotle University (2017-2020). He also served as member of the board of the Hellenic society of Nuclear Medicine and the Hellenic Society of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. Dr Koliakos has collaborated the last 30 years with clinical departments of Aristotle University, including the departments of Internal medicine, in research considering metabolic syndrome, oxidative stress, atherosclerosis and hypertension. His collaboration with the department of ophthalmology focused on the exfoliation syndrome, the most common cause of blindness of senior citizens. The collaboration with the department of surgery focused on wound healing. His current research interest include stem cell differentiation, stem cell extracellular matrix interactions, aging and rejuvenation mechanisms. Dr. George Koliakos has co-authored 180 peer reviewed papers listed in Pubmed and Scopus with a total of more than 4000 citations and a current Hills Index of 34 (Google Scholar). Dr. Koliakos has also long experience in busines management since he has served as cofounder and associate manager of Hippocrates Diagnostic Center in Thessaloniki (1991-2005), CEO in TAK EIE Biotechnology (2007-2017) a research oriented spin off of the Hellenic National Research Foundation and is currently since 2006, founder chairman and CEO of Biohellenika Biotechnology Company. He never was a member of masonry, or other related association. He became recently (August 2021) a member of AHEPA Patras section.
Czechia
Biography
Prof. DrSc. Pavel Hozák is the head of the Microscopy Centre of the Institute of Molecular Genetics, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic in Prague. A cell and molecular biologist, Pavel studied Biology at the Moscow State University, followed by research posts at the Dunn School of Pathology, Oxford University and at the Institute of Experimental Medicine of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences. Since 2006, he has been Head of the Department of Biology of the Cell Nucleus and since 2015, also Head of the Microscopy Centre, both at the Institute of Molecular Genetics of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic. He publishes in leading journals including Cell, Nature Cell Biology and Science. He lectures at the Charles University in the field of cellular and molecular biology, medical biology and microscopy. He is also the national coordinator of Czech-BioImaging and Euro-BioImaging.