Dimitris Kletsas

Institute Director / Ph.D, Institute of Biosciences and Applications / NCSR "Demokritos"
Gavin McStay

Senior Lecturer, Liverpool John Moores University

My research interests focus on the roles mitochondria play in aspects of eukaryotic life, ranging from their origin, metabolism, biogenesis and role they play in cell death pathways. These are interrogated using biochemical, molecular biology, genetic and cell biology techniques. I incorporate these interests into classes I teach to provide an understanding of practical techniques and also the current literature in the field. I studied biochemistry at the University of Leeds, with an industrial placement at Astra Charnwood, followed by a PhD at the University of Bristol, supervised by Professor Andrew Halestrap, to characterise the molecular composition of the mitochondrial permeability transition pore, with support from MitoKor. My post-doctoral training on the mitochondrial pathway of apoptosis supervised by Dr Doug Green was at the La Jolla Institute of Allergy and Immunology in San Diego, California and St Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee. I then was an associate research scientist working in the laboratory of Professor Alexander Tzagoloff at Columbia University in New York to study biogenesis of mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase in budding yeast, Saccharomyces cerevisiae. I held independent positions as assistant professor at the New York Institute of Technology in New York and Staffordshire University in Stoke-on-Trent where I continued my research and taught subjects related to biochemistry, cell biology, genetics and molecular biology. I am now a senior lecturer in biotechnology at Liverpool John Moores University.  I am a strong supporter of scientific communications and outreach to disseminate scientific developments and knowledge to a broader audience with the goal of increasing the general support of the scientific process. I also direct Biomed News, a free biomedical research literature discovery platform that uses machine learning.
I am a molecular biophysicist applying single-molecule fluorescence spectroscopy and advanced fluorescence microscopy techniques as well as tailoring new techniques and integrating with other experimental and theoretical techniques to study biomolecular interactions, structure, and dynamics in solution and the cell. I have been implementing my knowledge and experience in performing experiments to answer questions regarding various biomolecular systems, such as Adenylate Kinase, the bacterial transcription initiation complex, p53, the amyloid-beta peptide, alpha-synuclein, and more. Since I opened my lab in 2018, I have been interested in the molecular etiology of a group of diseases called Synucleinopathies (e.g., Parkinson's disease). My interests include, but are not limited to (i) the structure-dynamics-function relationship in intrinsically disordered proteins (IDPs); (ii) phase-separated bio-condensates in health and disease; (iii) sensitive detection of bio-nanoparticles, such as viruses, exosomes, and IDP-based oligomers/aggregates.