The SotiriouLab in March 2019.
Principal Investigator
Assistant Professor Dr. Georgios A. Sotiriou
Dr. Georgios A. Sotiriou is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Microbiology, Tumor and Cell Biology at Karolinska Institutet (Birgitta Henriques-Normark Unit) focusing on nanobiotechnology and biomaterial technology. He received his PhD from the Particle Technology Laboratory (Prof. Pratsinis group) at ETH Zurich, Switzerland (2011) and carried out postdoctoral research stays in Harvard University (2013-2015, Center for Nanotechnology and Nanotoxicology, Prof. Demokritou group) and ETH Zurich (2015-2016, Drug Formulation and Delivery Lab, Prof. Leroux group) before joining MTC. His research has been recognized internationally by several awards including the 2011 AIChE Bionanotechnology Graduate Student award, the 2012 Best PhD Thesis Award from the Swiss Chemical Society, the 2012 ETH Medal for outstanding Dissertation and the 2013 Hilti Award for Innovative Research and the 2017 ERC Starting Grant.
DISTINCTIONS & AWARDS
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Distinguished Alumni, School of Applied Mathematical and Physical Sciences, National Technical University of Athens, 20thyear anniversary (2019).
- Young Faculty Award, Mayo Clinic Symposium, Jacksonville, FL, USA (2018).
- Invited contribution to “Futures” Issue of AIChE Journal 2018, recognizing the scholarly potential of new researchers.
- European Research Council, ERC Starting Grant 2017.
- Elsevier Top Cited Paper Award for 2011 and 2012, AIChE 2014, Atlanta, USA (2014).
- Hilti Award for Innovative Research, ETH Zurich, Switzerland (2013).
- TechConnect Innovation Award, Washington D.C., USA (2013).
- ETH Medal for Outstanding PhD Thesis, ETH Zurich, Switzerland (2012).
- Reg Davies Award, International Fine Particle Research Institute (IFPRI) Annual Meeting, Ludwigsburg, Germany (2012).
- Best PhD Thesis Award, Division of Polymers and Colloids, Swiss Chemical Society (2012).
- 1st place at the AIChE Bionanotechnology Graduate Student Award, American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) Annual Meeting, Minneapolis, MN, USA (2011).
Postdoctoral fellows
Vasiliki Tsikourkitoudi
Dr. Vasiliki Tsikourkitoudi is a Chemical Engineer graduated from the National Technical University of Athens (2010). She performed her MSc studies in Materials Science and Technology in the Research Unit of Advanced, Composite, Nano Materials & Nanotechnology (Prof. Costas Charitidis) in the same university (2010-2012). In 2012, she moved to northern Spain where she was employed in Technological Centre L’UREDERRA as a Process Engineer elaborating an industrial PhD under Marie Sklodowska-Curie ITN MANANO project (EC under grant agreement No. 264710) working on Flame Spray Pyrolysis (FSP) process optimization for synthesis of nanoparticles with desired properties. Shereceived her PhD in 2016 from Kingston University of London supervised by Prof. Tao Zhang(Department of Mechanical Engineering). She then carried out postdoctoral research stay in Physics Department of University of Ioannina, Greece (Nanomaterials Lab-FSP, Prof. Yiannis Deligiannakis). She joined Prof. Georgios Sotiriou’s group in 2019 and she is currently working on nanoparticle-drug conjugates for drug delivery. She has published 11 scientific publications and has presented her scientific results in various scientific international conferences.
Distinctions and Awards
- Best poster award in Symposium N of E-MRS Spring Meeting (May 11-15, Lille, 2015).
- “Marie Curie fellowship” for PhD studies, “Manufacturing and applications of nanostructured materials (MANANO)” FP7-PEOPLE-2010-ITN project (grant agreement No. 264710).
- “Alexander S. Onassis Public Benefits Foundation” Fellowship for MSc studies.
- “Thomaidio Award” from National Technical University of Athens for scientific publication.
- “Chris Papakyriakopoulos” award for excellent performance in Mathematics.
email: vasiliki.tsikourkitoudi@ki.se
Eleni Bletsa
Dr. Eleni Bletsa, Environmental Engineer, received her Master degree (MSc) in inter-departmental specialization program “Chemistry and Technology of Materials” of Department of Materials Science & Engineering and Department of Chemistry from University of Ioannina (UOI), Greece. She performed her master thesis in Layered and Nanoporous Materials Laboratory of Prof. Gournis in Materials Science & Engineering department. The period of 2013-2017, she performed her PhD thesis in Physical/chemistry of materials for catalytic and environmental applications at Prof. Deligiannakis Lab in collaboration with Prof. Louloudi, Lab of Inorganic Chemistry, Department of Chemistry, UOI. In June, 2017 she received her PhD for Department of Materials Science and Engineering with grade excellent (10/10). For 1,5 year, Eleni was post-doctoral researcher at Flame Spray Pyrolysis Laboratory, at Department of Physics, University of Ioannina under Prof. Deligiannakis supervising, focused on nanoparticles production by FSP for photocatalytic and antioxidant applications. Eleni has teaching experience in Lab courses on Physical Chemistry, Instrumental Environmental Analysis, Materials and Environment (Physicochemical aspects of environmental remediation), of Dep. Materials Science & Engineering. She has scientific publications in peer reviewed journals (>10) and has many participations in national-international conferences. In 2015, Eleni received a personal scholarship from IHSS for visiting the Environmental Nanotechnology Laboratory of Prof. Baoshan Xing at University of Massachusetts, USA, where she studied the interactions of different types of nanoparticles with environmental factors. In 2016, she was awarded again from IHSS for her participation in 18th IHSS Meeting 2016, Kanazawa, Japan. In 2018, the researcher was selected from Greek national catalysis society to represent Greece at the first young generation catalysis contest organized by the European Federation of Catalysis Societies (EFCATS) at Wageningen University & Research, the Netherlands where she was awarded with the 1rst prize at Young Scientist Contest at catalysis by the European Federation of Catalysis Societies (EFCATS), Wageningen University & Research, the Netherlands. She has worked in research programs with companies (L’Oreal, IKERAL). In 2019, she joined at Prof. Sotiriou’s group as fellow focused on functional nanoparticles for bio-imaging and bio-sensing applications. Moreover, she received a personal fellowship from Greek foundation for education and European culture to study photo activated nano materials for biomedical applications at the same lab.
email: eleni.bletsa@ki.se
PhD students
Padryk Merkl
Padryk Merkl graduated in 2017 with an integrated masters degree in chemical physics from the University of Edinburgh, during this time he spent 13 months as an industrial placement student at Unilever in Colworth studying hair using confocal Raman spectroscopy supervised by Dr. Paul Pudney. He wrote his master’s thesis on an ab-initio computational study of the phase stabilities of neon hydrates conducted under the supervision of Dr. Andreas Hermann. He also spent a summer working in Dr. Colin Campbell’s group at the University of Edinburgh investigating the use of surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy for 3D cell culture analysis. He is now looking forward to applying himself to developing novel nanobiotechnological tools to study and manipulate biological systems.
email: padryk.merkl@ki.se
Felix Geissel
Felix Geissel graduated in 2015 with a bachelor’s degree in Nanotechnology from the University of Erlangen/Nuremberg, Germany. During that time, Felix spent five months in the group of Dr. Mikael Syväjärvi at Linköpings universitet to write his bachelor’s thesis about “3C-SiC and graphene heterostructures for new functionalities”. He continued moving to the UK and accomplishing his master’s degree in Biomaterials at the University of Manchester. The topic of his thesis was “Sol-gel synthesis of bioactive glass compositions for soft tissue regeneration”, supervised by Dr. Gowsh Poologasundarampilla. Felix is now using flame spray synthesis in order to manufacture nanosized multifunctional implant-coatings for osseointegration and antibacterial properties.
email: felix.geissel@ki.se
Jill Ziesmer
Jill was born in Germany and finished her Bachelor’s studies in the field of Life Science Engineering at the HTW Berlin in 2017, specialising in drug release through nanocarriers in skin. Due to her high performance in her studies she was put forward as a scholar in the prestigious German Scholarship Foundation “Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes”, where she was accepted in 2016. After finishing her Bachelor, she pursued with her academic career through conducting a Master of Research in Bioengineering at Imperial College London. There, she worked on skin attachment through nano-scaled keratin coating in osseointegrated prostheses under the supervision of Dr. Almquist. Inspired by the promising application of nanotechnology in medical contexts, she applied for PhD student position in Georgios Sotiriou’s group in 2018. Here, she is currently developing a plasmonic nanoparticle coating for micro needle patches in order to fight skin infection. When not being in the laboratory, Jill is also Co-Founder of the social business Siempre Energy, which aims to provide cheap access to renewable energy for rural habitants in Guatemala in order to fight poverty.
email: jill.ziesmer@ki.se
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jillziesmer
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Jill_Zsm
Undergrad students (Research Assistants)
Justina Venckute Larsson
Justina, a BSc student at KI, carried out her BSc Thesis in our lab in the topic of nanosilver-based anti-tumor nanoparticles and is currently working part-time in our lab. She is currently a BSc student at KTH Stockholm.
email: justina.venckute@stud.ki.se
Alumni
MSc students
Dorian Henning
Dorian carried out his Master thesis in our lab during 2017 in the field of enzyme-mimetic luminescent nano-based medical diagnostics.
Shuzhi Nicole Zhou
Nicole carried out her Master thesis in our lab from January to June 2018 in the field of anti-biofilm surfaces.
Changhun Isaac Yun
Isaac carried out his Master thesis in our lab from December 2017 to June 2018 in the field of nanoparticles for in vitro and in vivo bioimaging.
BSc students
Aashini Patel
Aashini, a BSc student at KI, carried out her BSc Thesis in our lab in the topic of drug-loaded microneedles.
Karolina Vitkeviciute
Karolina was an exchange BSc student from the University of Sydney who carried our her project on multifunctional implant nanocoatings.
Research Internships
Athina Eleftheraki
Athina, an undergrad student from the Democritus University of Thrace, spent the summer of 2018 in our lab as an AMGEN Scholar.
Justina Venckute Larsson
Justina, a BSc student at KI, spent the summer of 2018 in our lab as a “KI Summer School in Medical Research” intern.
Apostolos Zaganiaris
Apostolis was an Erasmus intern in Sotiriou Lab. During his internship he was developing silver nanoparticles-coated polymer with photothermal abilities as antimicrobial agent against biofilms.
Mariam Shehata Morcos Abdalla Shahata
Mariam, a BSc student at KI, was an “KI Summer School in Medical Research” intern in our lab during summer 2019.
