Electra Gizeli - Biography#

Dr Electra Gizeli is a Professor in the Dept. of Biology at the Univ. of Crete and Affiliated Researcher & Deputy Director at IMBB-FORTH. She studied in Greece (BSc in Chemistry, Athens Univ.) and the UK (MSc in UCL and PhD in the Univ. of Cambridge); after receiving a prestigious BBSRC Fellowship, she established her group at the Inst. of Biotechnology, Univ. of Cambridge for 6 years. In Greece, she was one of the first to establish a highly multidisciplinary lab covering both basic and applied research. Her leadership skills have led to the coordination of several multidisciplinary projects after securing competitive funding form the EU and other organizations, most notably the HFSP where she coordinated two projects during her career. She has participated in 42 projects (33 as coordinator), raising in total 24M€ (8.8M€ for her lab). Her group has received several Innovation awards including the Nokia Open Innovation Challenge in Finland. Currently, she is a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the EDCP3 advising on EU-strategies on diagnostics in Africa. She has served as a reviewer of many Funders (Welcome-Trust, EU, HFSP, etc.) and an industrial consultant.

Her scientific interests include biosensor/biophysics, molecular diagnostics, nanobiotechnology and biomedical engineering; she is considered pioneer in the fields of acoustic biosensors and molecular diagnostics with >90 publications in top journals and 5 patents. The transfer of innovative concepts from the lab to the society has been a constant inspiration in her group, with emphasis on molecular diagnostic tools for healthcare applications and agro/food safety. She has led several evaluation studies in hospitals in Europe and Africa applying novel methods to infectious diseases-testing. She is the co-founder of two spin-off companies of FORTH dedicated to diagnostic platforms; moreover, she has used the revenue coming from the exploitation of IP produced in her lab to support collaborative work on diagnostics in Africa. During her career, she has trained 22 post-docs, 15 PhD, and >50 MSc and undergraduate students. She has established and leads the IMBB Mentoring Scheme to assist young researchers towards their future career. She is particularly active in the dissemination of science to the wide audience through participation in open science events.