SCIENTIFIC INTERESTS

The main research efforts of the Molecular Carcinogenesis Group (MCG) are devoted to deciphering the molecular mechanisms involved in the development of neoplastic diseaseand are primarily focused on the upper and lower respiratory tract. The MCG has long been involved in the investigation of the mechanisms leading to deregulation of the cell cycle and the emergence of genomic instability in cancer. Aberrations in the pRb/E2F, DNA damage response and repair (DDR-R) and p53 pathways/networks have been the aims of intense research. Based on the extensive molecular pathology experience that the group possesses, notable clinic-pathological observations are functionally recapitulated in vitro and in vivo, aiming to decode the underlying mechanism driving aberrant cellular behavior. Within this context we are particularly interested in the role of cellular senescence in cancer, and other age-related pathologies, as well. In this frame, we have developed a pioneer senescence biomarkers (commercially available) able to detect senescence in any biological material including archival. MCG is also looking into the role of inflammation during neoplastic as well as non-neoplastic diseases. We have contributed in unraveling the systemic impact of DNA damage response aberrations in inflammatory-driven cancer. In the advent of digitized medicine where the size of data exponentially increases, machine learning frameworks are entering the scene allowing us to effectively utilize the massive amount of information generated on a daily basis. Within this context we are developing machine learning tools that increase the efficiency and speed of diagnostic and therapeutic approaches and thus deliver personalized care solutions for patients MCG has recently expanded its research interests towards nanotechnology applications in human disease. Apart from the research activities, MCG is providing molecular pathology services.

EDUCATION

1996 Medical Specialty: Pathology (Summa Cum Laude)
1994 PhD: School of Medicine, University of Athens, Greece (Summa Cum Laude)
1988 Undergraduate Studies: School of Medicine, University of Athens, Greece (Summa Cum Laude)

CURRENT POSITIONS

2011 – Professor-Director, Dept. of Histology and Embryology, School of Medicine, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens, Greece. [site: www.gorgoulis.gr (under re-construction)]
2013 – Collaborating Professor, Biomedical Research Foundation, Academy of Athens (site: http://www.bioacademy.gr/faculty-details/Gsk/vassilis?lang=en)
2014 – Honorary Professor, Faculty of Medical and Human Sciences, University of Manchester, Manchester, UK
2018 – Member of the board of the Center for New Biotechnologies and Precision Medicine, Medical School, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens, Greece.
2021 – Visiting Professor, Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences, University of Surrey, UK.
2022 – Chair of Clinical and Molecular Pathology (elected), Medical School, University of Dundee, UK

SUPERVISION OF GRADUATE STUDENTS AND POSTDOCTORAL FELLOWS

a. Postgraduate Supervising
i) Supervisor or member of the supervising committee for >20 PhD students over the last 5 years;
ii) Supervisor of >10 students for MSc or MPhil diploma thesis over the last 5 years

b. Post Doctoral Supervising
Supervisor of 10 PostDocs over the last 5 years

ORGANISATION OF SCIENTIFIC MEETINGS (as key organizer)

1. 2nd Genomic Instability Workshop, GENICA FP7 Health Programme, Athens, May 2009
2. 1st International Conference on Molecular Cancer Research, Royal Olympic Hotel, Athens, November 2009
3. EMBO Workshop, Chromosome Structure, Damage & Repair, September, Cape Sounio Hotel, 2011
4. International workshop on: “Ageing and Cancer Cell Biology: Convergent and divergent molecular mechanisms”, Athens July, 2013
5. International workshop on: “Oncogenic Pathways and Antitumor Responses”, Athens April, 2014
6. Senescence in neural development and neurodegeneration, symposium of the 7th Mediterranean Neuroscience Conference, Marrakech, June 23-27, 2019
7. International Cell Senescence Association (ICSA) conference, Athens, 9-12 Sept 2019

TEACHING ACTIVITIES

1997 – Undergraduate teaching
i) School of Medicine: Histology – Cell Biology, Embryology, Cancer Biology, Anthropology
ii) Dentistry School: Histology – Cell Biology, Embryology

REVIEWING ACTIVITIES

a. Reviewer for journals (>60): Cell, Nature, Nat Rev Cancer, Nat Cell Biol, Cancer Cell, Mol Cell, Genome Biol, Nat Comm, EMBO J, J Cell Biol, J Clin Invest, Curr Opin Cell Biol, Trends Genetics, Curr Biol, Ann Human Genet, Cell Death Diff, Cancer Res, Current Biology, Cell Reports, Sem Cancer Biol, Oncogene, Cell Death Dis, J Pathol, Clin Cancer Res, FEBS Lett, J Cell Mol Med, Plos Genet, Carcinogenesis, Cancer Lett, J Mol Med, Mut Res, Mech Aging Dev, Lung Cancer, and others.

b. Grant evaluations: International:
1) European Research Council (ERC): i) LS1 panel member in AdG calls (2020, 2022), ii) reviewer in Synergy/Advanced/Starting calls; 2) EMBO Young Investigator Programme, 3) Cancer Research UK; 4) Medical Research Council, UK; 5) Leukemia Research, UK; 6) Israel Science Foundation; 7) Deutsches Krebsforschungszentrum (DKFZ), Germany; 8) Netherlands, NWO, Innovational Research Incentives Scheme Veni 2013 ALW; 9) Agence Nationale De La Recherche (French National Research Agency), France; 10) French National Cancer Institute (INCa); 11) Dutch Cancer Society, Holland; 12) Ministry of Science and Technology, Israel; 13) “Tumour escape” from canceropole CLARA (Cancéropôle Lyon Auvergne Rhône-Alpes); 14) The Neye Foundation, Denmark; 15) Austrian Science Fund; 16) European Hematology Association, Netherlands; 17) Swiss Cancer League; 18) Swiss National Science Foundation; 19) Portuguese Science and Technology Foundation; 20) Academy of Sciences, Czech Republic; 21) Czech Science Foundation; 22) HRB eGrant, Health Research Awards; 23) BIRAX Ageing; 24) Barts Charity; 25) US FOOD & DRUG ADMINISTRATION, Chief Scientist Grants Program, USA, 26) FONDECYT-CHILE.

Domestic:
1) Greek Ministry of Education; 2) General Secretariat for Research and Innovation (GSRI); 3) Karatheodori, University of Patras, Greece; 4) IKY, 5) ELIDEK (HFRI), 6) EPAnEK
c. Reviewer for panel evaluation of international institutes:
1) Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine (MDC), Berlin, Germany (2018)
2) Center for Chromosome Stability (CCS), Danish National Research Foundation, Copenhagen, Denmark (2019)

COMMISSIONS OF TRUST

Editorial Board member of:
1) Frontiers in Cell and Developmental Biology; 2) Mechanisms of Ageing and Development; 3) International Journal of Molecular Sciences; 4) Experimental Gerontology; 5) F1000Research ‘Cellular senescence in stress and aging’ Collection; 6) In Vivo

MEMBERSHIPS OF SCIENTIFIC SOCIETIES

2015 – European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) member
2022 – European Academy of Cancer Sciences (EACS)
2022 – Academia Europaea (AE)
2014 – Fellow of the European Association for Cancer Research
2005 – Fellow of the European Society of Pathology
2004 – Fellow of the International Union Against Cancer (UICC)
1999 – Hellenic Society of Pathology
2022 – American Mathematical Society (AMS)
2022 – Hellenic Mathematical Society (HMS)

MAJOR COLLABORATIONS

a. Institute of Cancer Biology and Centre for Genotoxic Stress Research, Danish Cancer Society, Copenhagen, Denmark. Prof J Bartek
b. Dept of Molecular Biology, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland. Prof TD Halazonetis
c. Dept of Molecular Cell Biology, The Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel. Prof M Oren
d. University of Dundee, Dundee, UK. Profs R Petty and JJ Blow
e. Institute of Pathology, University Medical Centre Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany. Prof A Papantonis
f. Lab of Human Carcinogenesis, NCI-CCR, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland, USA. Prof C Harris
g. European Research Institute for the Biology of Aging (ERIBA), University Medical Center Groningen,
Netherlands. Assoc Prof M Demaria
h. Aging & Metabolism Group, Institute for Research in Biomedicine, Barcelona, Spain. Prof M Serrano
i. National Heart and Lung Institute, Imperial College London, London, UK. Prof P Barnes
j. Science for Life Laboratory, Department of Medical Biochemistry and Biophysics, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden. Prof T Helleday
k. Institute of Molecular Biology & Biotechnology, FORTH, Greece. Assoc Prof P Verginis
l. Computing Sciences Department, Bocconi University, Milan Italy. Prof F Buffa
m. Dept of Human Molecular Genetics and Biochemistry, Sackler Medical School, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel. Prof Y Shiloh

CARRIER HIGHLIGHTS as a group leader

1. Achievements
During my career as a PI, I was a lead participant in: i) Establishing the “Oncogene-induced DNA damage model for cancer development” and that Genomic Instability is a hallmark of cancer (Science 2008, Nat Rev Mol Cell Biol 2010), based mainly on: Nature 2005, Nature 2006, Cancer Res 2007; ii) Demonstrating that oncogene-induced senescence is a barrier to cancer (Nature 2006); iii) Providing guidelines that include a proprietary innovative biomarker for precise senescence detection (Cell 2019, Nat Prot 2021, Aging Cell 2017); iv) Challenging the dogma that senescence is an irreversible cell cycle arrest by defining how escape from this phenomenon takes place during cancer progression (Nat Cell Biol 2016, Mol Cell 2021); v) Clarifying the functional interplay and the timeline of events underlying the two major antitumor checkpoint responses, i.e. DDR and ARF (Nat Cell Biol 2013, Cell Death Diff 2013); vi) Providing evolutionary evidence that modern humans dispersed into Europe and Asia (150 thousand years) earlier than initially thought (Nature 2019, among the 2019 top 100 most influential studies (https://www.altmetric.com/top100/ 2019/). I was also governmentally appointed during 2020-2022 as: i) Coordinator of the Greek national program: “Emblematic action to handle SARS-CoV-2 infection”; ii) national reference lab for covid19 tests.

2. Publications – Citations – Communications
– 348 publications (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=Gorgoulis); >44805 citations; h index: 84
– 27 publications with highlights (eg in: “All time article recommendations” F1000 Faculty Prime site; J Pathol 2002; Nature 2005; Nat Genet 2011; Cell Death Diff 2013; Nat Cell Biol 2016; Nat Rev Can 2016; Nat Mol Cell Biol 2016; AACR insights 2022; Eur Respir J 2022)
– >250 presentations, including 27 Keynote/Distinguished lectures (eg EMBO presentations: 2007, 2011, 2013, 2015, 2017; Oxford University Seminars 2010; Cold Spring Harbor Lab 2013; EACR 2014; Weizmann Institute Seminars 2015; ICSA 2018, 2019; Umeå Univ 2022: Distinguished Guest Seminars)
3. Fellowships, prizes awarded and recognitions

– 34 fellowships and prizes (eg UICC, Greek Academy of Sciences, University of Athens, Hellenic Pathology Society, Papanicolaou Cytopathology Research Award)
– Among most Highly Cited Greek Scientists: https://sites.google.com/site/highlycited/highly-cited-greek-scientists
– Sept 2021: among the top 0.1% experts in cellular senescence
(https://twitter.com/Daily_Experts/status/1436228969683095556?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)

4. Book chapters
14 chapters in international books (see details at: https://www.gorgoulis.gr/publications/full-list-of-articles)

5. Patents – private sector
– WIPO Publication No: WO/2005/035787: Patent diploma awarded for “Molecular method for the typing of Mycobacterium avium subsp. Paratuberculosis”
– EPO Publication No: EP3475265B1 and EP3475287B1, awarded for SBB analogues chemical synthesis, method(s), and application(s) in senescence detection
– Patent pending: UK Patent Application Number GB1803531.1, regarding “Novel lipofuscin quantification detection”
– Patent pending: Greece Application No OBI 2410-0004635983, UK Patent Application No P350806GR, International Application No PCT/GB2024/050047 for “Hydrophilic compounds”

6. Scientific advisor for Intelligencia.ai (https://www.intelligencia.ai/): pioneering the use of Machine Learning algorithms to assess, quantify, and reduce the risk of clinical development

Vassilis G. Gorgoulis