5th of September 2017, Department of Biochemistry and Biotechnology of UTh (Larissa) - CAREER DEVELOPMENT PLAN MEETING
The fellow Dr Sotirios Vasileiadis got together with the project coordinator Prof. D. Karpouzas, the Head of the Department of Biochemistry and Biotechnology Prof. Kostas Mathiopoulos, the Head of the Technology Transfer Office of the University of Thessaly Dr Thomas Thomaidis and the Head of the Liaison and Career Development Office of the University of Thessaly Mr Charalambos Samantzis. The purpose of the meeting was to develop a career development plan for Sotirios in the context of the project EMIGRATE.
Sotirios introduced himself and the project through a brief presentation triggering a more detailed discussion about aspects of the project which resulted in valuable feedback by the attendees. Training opportunities were provided throughout the presentation of Charalambos Samantzis, oriented towards follow-up entrepreneurship and funding attraction through Greek and European funding schemes. A particular focus of his presentation was the European Project Erasmus for Young Entrepreneurs. More details on intellectual rights and support of patents and spinoff opportunities were provided by Dr Theodosiadis – Thomaidis.
The meeting was concluded on a positive note with regards to future opportunities for the project and the fellow as stated by Prof. Karpouzas and Mathiopoulos. A preliminary plan for the training and career development of Sotirios was prepared by the Coordinator and it will be passed to the other participants for verification and finalization.
5 Sep 2017 Career development planning meeting (left to right: Haralabos Samantzis, Prof. Kostas Mathiopoulos, Dr Thomas Thomaidis, and Sotirios).
22nd of September 2017, Conference call among project partners - Topic: Experimental design and project progress discussion. Locations: Larissa (Greece), Piacenza (Italy), Leipzig (Germany)
All project partners participated in this conference call for the discussion of the exeprimental design and the so far progress of both the experiments and the administrative project aspects. The participants were all the partners: Dr. Antonis Chatzinotas from UFZ (Leipzig, Germany), Prof. Marco Trevisan together with Dr. Federico Ferrari and Dr. Luigi Lucini from Piacenza (Aeiforia srl - UniCatt spinoff - from Piacenza, Italy), and Dr. Spyridon Ntougias together with Prof. Dimitrios Karpouzas and the fellow Dr. Sotirios Vasileiadis (connected from the University of Thessaly, Larissa, Greece).
During the conference call, aspects of the results and setup of the preliminary and the initial experiments were discussed along with ideas about the sampling types and scheme necessary for tackling the project objectives. Furthermore, a first discussion on the project secondment time-periods was carried out, setting a rough framework concerning the first two visits. A visit to UFZ (Leipzig, Germany) for carrying out the analysis of the microbial community succession in relation with the TBZ degradation, employing a stable isotope probing approach, is considered to be followed by the visit to Aeiforia (Piacenza, Italy) to carry out the analysis of the metabolites. The exact visiting dates at each institute will be determined by the experimental series to be carried out during the oncoming 3-4 weeks.
This meeting was a great opportunity for Sotirios to receive valuable feedback from all the experienced researchers and tackling issues associated with major project aspects such as: the diversity analysis; the TBZ metabolism products analysis at the various stages; obtaining deeper information concerning the signaling activity taking place among consortium members.
22 Sep 2017 Partners' project meeting. Left panel: Sotirios and Dr. Spyridon Ntougias // Right panel: Internet communication with Prof. Antonis Chatzinotas (left slot on conference call) and Prof. Marco Trevisan, Dr. Federico Ferrari and Dr. Luigi Lucini. Prof. Dimitrios Karpouzas behind the scenes.
9th of December 2017: EMIGRATE goes public in the local news
"Clean enough wastes, suitable for disposal in the fileds" is the tentative title of the article puplished at the ypaithros.gr online newspaper. There, Prof. Dimitrios Karpouzas provided a brief overview of the projet history, vision and the expected environmetal and economical impact.
20th-27th of February 2018: EMIGRATE endorsed seminars on genome assembly by Sotirios
Sotirios had the opportunity to share some of the bioinformatics strategies employed during his research with several PhD students and colleagues in this 7-day genome assembly seminar. The seminar included some theory on currently employed sequencing technologies in genomics and associated genome assembly methods. The theory was combined with hands on experience on the assembly of a serotype O157:H7 Escherichia coli strain using real data, and the identification of associated genome finishing inhibitory factors.
Discussion on the theory of the genome assembly algorithms during the seminar.
Hands on experience on genome assembly.
3rd of March 2018: open day
Today we had the opportunity to receive high school students and communicate our excitement for our work to this next generation of potential researchers.
29-31 of May 2018: Supporting with insights on metagenome screening the COST action (ES1403) training school co-organized by the Nireas-International Water Research Center, the University of Cyprus, the Cyprus Agricultural Research Institute, and the Cyprus University of Technology, in Cyprus.
Sotirios gave a talk on methodologies on metegenome screening, from wet to dry lab, for antibiotic resistance genes and associated microorganisms in soil, plant, aquatic and waste-water treatment plant environments.
24-28 of June 2018: Training of PhD students in bacterial genome assembly and annotation at the Mikrobiokosmos summer School at Moni Paou (Volos, Greece).
Within the context of the the Mikrobiokosmos summer school for PhD students, Sotirios had the opportunity to discuss concepts of bacterial genome assembly and annotation with brilliant PhD students and share some of the common in silico methods with them. Mikrobiokosmos has solidified its presence in the Greek scientific status in the late years and has been endorsed by a large portion of pioneering researchers. To this end, Sotirios was delighted to be given the opportunity to give a training session next to several global leaders in microbiology in a very well organized seminar series.
12th-17th of August 2018: EMIGRATE goes to ISME17 ISME17 honoured EMIGRATE with a poster prepsentation and a poster pitch.
Sotirios during the 3-minute poster pitch.
The plant and environmental biotechnology group representatives with other Greek members of the microbial ecology research community attending ISME17. Left to right: Sevasi Filippidou (University of Neuchatel), Nancy Katsoula (UTh), Hera Karayanni (University of Ioannina), Kostas Kormas (UTh), Antonis Chatzinotas (UFZ), Dimitris Karpouzas (UTh), Aspassia Chatziefthimiou (Weill Cornell Medicine), Sotirios Vasileiadis (UTh), Panagiotis Karas (UTh)
15 of Nov 2018: Talk at the Hellenic Bioinformatics 11 conference (Thessaloniki, Greece).
Sotirios Had the opportunity to present the EMIGRATE progress at the HB11 in front of an international audience (don't let "Hellenic" fool you in the title) among Greek expats.
6-8 March 2019: Another open day of UTh to the local schools of Thessaly.
Sharing our work with the future generation of researchers.
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