Efstathiou Antonia

Dr. Antonia Efstathiou is a post-doctoral researcher at the Hellenic Pasteur Institute (HPI) with expertise in pathway signaling, biochemistry, immunology and molecular biology. AE is also a lecturer in Molecular Biology course (theoretical and laboratory- 4th semester,) and in Biotechnology course (8th semester, 2023) in the Department of Biomedical Sciences of the University of Western Attica, in the context of the NSRF Project entitled “Acquiring Academic Teaching Experience for Young Scientists with PhDs” during 2021-2022 and 2022-2023. AE holds a PhD in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, an MSc in Biochemistry, a BSc in Chemistry (National and Kapodistrian University of Athens-NKUA, Department of Chemistry, 2014, 2009 and 2007 respectively) and an MSc in Business Administration (Hellenic Open University – 2015). Her PhD thesis involved the in vitro and in vivo evaluation of drug targets (kinases) for antiparasitic drug discovery. Her MBA thesis centered on Managing Bio-Research programs in a research institute.

During her post-doctoral researches, AE focused shortly on signaling pathways of TGFP for development of new therapies for inspiratory diseases and on DNA damage repair pathways in Systemic Lupus Erythematosus patients. Thereafter, AE was granted an IKY-SIEMENS excellence fellowship on parasitic studies (2015-2017) and finally since 2018 her post-doctoral research focuses on immunomodulatory role of exosomes and the use of exosomes as vaccine candidates. Overall, as a post-doctoral researcher, AE have obtained expertise in drug and vaccine development for infectious and/or neglected diseases, in handling laboratory animals, in pathway signaling, biochemistry, immunology and molecular biology and in various experimental methods including cell culture, flow cytometry, cell sorting fluorescence, confocal microscopy, ELISA, nanoparticles evaluation in in vitro and in vivo systems and molecular biology techniques such as isolation and amplification of nucleic acids (PCR, Real Time PCR), exo so me isolation/characterization and innovative -omics technologies (RNA, miRNAand scRNA sequencing, proteomics).

Her research focuses on microbiology where a set of skills in the areas of cell and molecular biology, immunopathology, genetics, genomics and bioinformatics is needed. Presently, her research studies focus on: a) innovative vaccine development, b) in vivo drug screening, c) signaling pathways and pathogen-host interaction analysis for highlighting biomarkers (applications in One Health – circular economy) and d) exosomes to highlight their role in the regulation of signaling and immune pathways as well as their possible involvement in the development of drug and antibiotic resistance. To date, AE has published 16 scientific papers in international journals with 222 hetero-references (h-index 9).