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GEORGIOS SKRETAS
Chief Executive Officer & Chief Scientific Officer
Georgios Skretas received his Bachelor's degree from the School of Chemical Engineering, National Technical University of Athens (Greece) in 1998 and his PhD in Chemical and Biological Engineering from Princeton University (USA) in 2006. He then worked as a post-doctoral research associate at the Institute
of Cell and Molecular Biology of the University of Texas at Austin (USA) (2006-2009). In 2010, he received a Marie Curie International Reintegration Fellowship to return to Greece and the National
Hellenic Research Foundation (NHRF). Since then, he has been Principal Investigator of the Laboratory of Enzyme and Synthetic Biotechnology of the Institute of Chemical Biology at the NHRF, where he currently holds the rank of Research Associate Professor. Georgios Skretas has recently been awarded the highly prestigious Consolidator Grant by the European Research Council (ERC). He has published the results of his research in highly prestigious scientific journals, such as Nature Biomedical Engineering, Science Advances, Journal of the American Chemical Society and ACS Synthetic Biology, and he is inventor on four (4) patents/patent applications. He is the elected representative of Greece to the Scientific Committee of the European Section of Applied Biocatalysis.
KATERINA PAPANIKOLOPOULOU
Chief R&D Officer
Katerina Papanikolopoulou is a neurobiologist specializing in protein misfolding diseases, with a focus on Tau-related neurodegenerative disorders. She received her B.Sc. in Chemistry from the University of Athens (2000) and her Ph.D. in Structural Biology from Université Joseph Fourier in Grenoble (2004), where she studied protein folding and amyloid aggregation at the Institut de Biologie Structurale. She then conducted postdoctoral research at the University of Crete, MIT, and BSRC "Alexander Fleming." In 2017, she was supported by the Stavros Niarchos Foundation and became a Group Leader at BSRC "Alexander Fleming". Dr. Papanikolopoulou has received competitive research grants, published extensively in high-impact journals, and actively collaborates on translational strategies for neurodegenerative disease therapeutics. In 2023, she joined ResQ Biotech as Chief R&D Officer
ATHINA OIKONOMIDOU
Chief Operating Officer
Athina Oikonomidou holds a BSc degree in Chemical Engineering from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (1993) and a MBA from IESE (Un. Navarra, Barcelona, 1997). For the past 18 years she has been involved in Business Development and Technology Transfer specializing in Life Sciences and Biotechnology. She has collaborated with most Research Centers in the country, individual Researchers and Businesses. During this time she has overseen the preparation of dozens of Business Plans, has authored over 10 Feasibility Studies, Financial Sustainability Analyzes as well as Market and Commercial Development Studies. She also participates in teams conducting Patent Assessments. Athina has been the Director of Technology Transfer and Administrative Services of BSRC "Al. Fleming ”, where she oversaw the creation of the Center's intellectual property portfolio and co-ordinated the commercialization of the technologies and materials developed there. She has also worked with EkinisiLAB, the incubator of BSE companies, where he supported 23 teams in developing their Business Model and developing their Business Plan. She is an evaluator in the EU Horizon2020 SME Instrument Program where she has evaluated over 300 proposals. Athina teaches courses on "Introduction to Technology Transfer" and "Models of Commercialization in Life Sciences" in various postgraduate programs.
Scientific Advisory Board
GEORGE GEORGIOU
George Georgiou is a Professor at the University of Texas, Austin, USA. He received his B.Sc. from the University of Manchester, U.K. and Ph.D. from Cornell. His research is focused on the preclinical development of enzyme and antibody therapeutics for cancer and for inborn errors of metabolism and the understanding the serological antibody repertoire in human health and disease and on the discovery. Professor Georgiou was elected to the National Academy of Engineering (2005), National Academy of Medicine (2011) and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2016). He is also a Fellow of the American Institute for Biological and Medical Engineers (AIMBE), the American Academy of Microbiology and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). He is the author of >260 research publications and co-inventor of 87 issued or pending US patents, more than 65% of which (comprising 24 distinct technology suites) have been licensed to 27 pharma & biotech companies. He founded GGMJD (1999; acquired by Maxygen in 2000), Aeglea Biotherapeutics (2013-Present; NASDAQ: AGLE) and Kyn Therapeutics Inc. (now Ikena Oncology; 2015-Present) and currently serves as a Director and Chairman of the SAB for both companies. In 2013, Georgiou was selected as one of the top 20 Translational Researchers by Nature Biotechnology. He is inventor of the FDA-approved drug Anthim (obiltoxaximab) to treat inhalational anthrax.
KOSTAS VEKRELIS
Kostas Vekrellis received his BSc in Neuroscience from University College London Medical School/Department of Anatomy and Developmental Biology, with First Class Honours in 1993. He obtained his PhD in Neuroscience in 1997 from the same university working on the regulation and function of the bcl-2 family of genes and their role in neuronal survival in laboratory of Jonathan Ham and Lee. L Rubin. He then received a research fellowship from Harvard Medical School, Brigham and Women's Hospital, to work in Dennis Selkoe's laboratory in the Center for Neurologic Diseases. His research focused on the degradation mechanisms of amyloid-β peptide (Αβ), as a cause and effect of Alzheimer's disease. His work identified Insulin Degrading Enzyme (IDE) as a major Αβ-degrading protease in neurons. In 1999, he was offered an Instructor position at Harvard Medical School, Department of Neurology. Since 2002 Dr. Vekrellis is a Researcher in the Division of Basic Neurosciences at the Biomedical Research Foundation of the Academy of Athens (BRFAA), where he currently holds the rank of Research Associate Professor. Dr. Vekrellis is highly experienced in cellular and animal models of neurodegeneration, as well as human histopathology. His lab interests lie in the role of protein oligomerization, misfolding and aggregation, with respect to neurodegenerative disease. Since 2012, he has been a visiting professorship at the University of Oxford, Division of Experimental Medicine, Nuffield Department of Medicine.
ELIAS PAVLOPOULOS
Elias Pavlopoulos is currently a Senior Scientific Advisor for Life Sciences at FORTH Investment Management LLC in New York, USA. In addition to ResQ Biotech, Elias serves as a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of Tessara Therapeutics (Melbourne, Australia) and Ilios Therapeutics (Boston, USA), and he has also served as a grant reviewer for the Hellenic Foundation for Research and Innovation. Prior to joining FORTH, Dr. Pavlopoulos was an Associate Director at Regeneron Pharmaceuticals (New York, USA), where he led two research groups and spearheaded drug discovery and development programs in ALS, FTD, Huntington’s disease, and cognitive aging. Among his achievements was the discovery of new therapeutic approaches for ALS and FTD and their
advancement in the preclinical pipeline of the company, contributing to a novel Huntington’s disease therapeutic approach, which is currently in Phase 1 clinical trial, and developing a human Brain/BBB-Chip model to enhance preclinical testing.
From 2014 to 2017, Dr. Pavlopoulos was a Senior Scientist and Group Leader at Acorda Therapeutics, where he led preclinical programs for multiple sclerosis. Prior to transitioning to industry, he was an Associate Research Scientist at Columbia University in the laboratory of the Nobel Laureate Eric Kandel, and a postdoctoral fellow at Texas A&M University and BSRC “Alexander Fleming” under the supervision of Dr. Efthimios Skoulakis. Dr. Pavlopoulos’s research focused on memory-enhancing mechanisms and the molecular distinction between human cognitive aging and Alzheimer’s disease, work recognized by the Kavli Foundation and the Molecular and Cellular Cognition Society for its scientific excellence.
Dr. Pavlopoulos graduated from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (AUTH) and earned his M.Sc. and Ph.D. in Molecular Biology and Genetics at the University of Crete and the Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology (IMBB-FORTH). His research has been published in top-tier journals, such as Cell, Science Translational Medicine, PNAS, and Developmental Cell.