Dionyssios Sgouras

Dr. Dionyssios Sgouras is currently a Principal Investigator at the Laboratory of Medical Microbiology of the Hellenic Pasteur Institute. Since May 2014, he has also been appointed as Head of the Vaccine Unit at Hellenic Pasteur Institute, following the approval of the National Organization for Medicines. Present research interests focus on bacterial pathogenesis and most specifically, Helicobacter pylori virulence factors and their effect on host intracellular signaling pathways, focusing mainly on epithelial cell pathogenesis and tissue remodeling during the infection. He received his B.Sc. (Chemistry) with honors (8/10) from the National & Kapodistrian University of Athens in 1985. In 1987 he completed successfully a M.Sc. (by research) at the Department of Postgraduate Medicine of the University of Keele, UK, on the evaluation of biocompatibility of a novel organosilicate polymer for biomedical use. He completed his Ph.D. studies at the Cancer Research Campaign’s Polymer-Controlled Drug Delivery Research Group, University of Keele, UK, on the biological characterization of soluble synthetic polymers to be used as carriers for controlled drug delivery of anticancer anthracycline antibiotics. Throughout 1991 he served as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the same laboratory working on the development of anticancer drug formulations for first order targeting to the lung, a project supported by Farmitalia Carlo Erba (Italy). From 1992 until 1995 having been awarded a U.S. National Institutes of Health-Fogarty International Fellowship he served as a postdoctoral research fellow at the Laboratory of Molecular Oncology, National Cancer Institute of the National Institutes of Health, based at the Frederick Cancer Research and Development Center in Frederick, MD. His work focused on the isolation and molecular characterization of ERF, a transcription factor of the ETS family of human oncogenes. During his Armed Forces conscription, he served in the Greek Airforce (1996-1997) at the 251th Airforce Hospital, working in the Department of Nuclear Medicine and the Biochemistry Department. From 1997 until 2002, he was employed as a senior staff scientist at the Diagnostic Genetic Center S.A., a private laboratory involved in cytogenetic, biochemical and molecular prenatal screening. From 1999 until 2002 he worked as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Hellenic Pasteur Institute, in the Laboratory of Medical Microbiology, in May 2002 he became Assistant Researcher and in 2010 promoted to Principal Investigator.
He has co-authored more than 170 publications including 37 publications in peer reviewed international journals (1416 citations based on ISI plus 162 citations in patents), 3 publications in national journals, one invited book chapter, over 65 papers in international conferences and 75 papers in national conferences. He holds 2 patents (US 6194547 and US 5856125) and has given 14 invited talks in international conferences.