George Kollias: Brief CV

George Kollias, Ph.D. President and Director

Dr. George Kollias, born in 1958, received his B.Sc. in Biology from the University of Athens, Greece and Ph.D. training from 1980 to 1984 in Molecular Biology at the National Hellenic Research Foundation. He has post-doctoral experience in the field of gene structure and expression (Laboratory of Gene Structure and Expression, National Institute for Medical Research, Mill Hill, London, UK) and from 1990 - 2000 he established the Laboratory of Molecular Genetics at the Hellenic Pasteur Institute in Athens, Greece. From 2000-2002, he was appointed Director of the Institute for Immunology at the Biomedical Sciences Research Center "Al. Fleming", and from 2002 he was appointed the Center's President and Director.

Dr. Kollias has a sound expertise in transgenic, gene mutational and knockout technology, molecular and cellular biology and immunology. His interests are in the field of the role of cytokines in inflammation and autoimmunity and his lab is best known for transgenic and knockout research in the TNF field and for establishing and characterizing disease pathways in animal models for chronic inflammation and autoimmunity (e.g. Rheumatoid Arthritis, Inflammatory Bowel Disease, Multiple Sclerosis, endotoxic shock and systemic lupus).

He has published over 90 primary research articles in peer-reviewed journals and his work has received over 8000 citations. He has been the recipient of the 1993 International Prize-Award for achievements in "Molecular Biomedicine" under the scheme "International Scientific and Cultural Awards of the Bodosaki Foundation" and from 2000, an elected member of the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO). His laboratory is supported by several competitive grants from European Commission and National sources as well as by international biopharmaceutical industry.

Dr Kollias serves as an advisor for scientific organizations and consults for industry. He also serves as invited speaker and chairman and as a member of the Organising and Scientific Committees of several scientific meetings throughout the world. Dr. Kollias is also a regular member of the National Council on Research and Technology of the Ministry of Development (2001-2003 and 2005-present). Recently, Dr Kollias was appointed coordinator of a consortium of 24 European organizations constituting a Network of Excellence on 'Functional Genomics in mutant mouse models as tools to investigate the complexity of human immunological disease' [6th Framework Program (2005-2009) - 11M€]