Group Members

Post Doctoral Research Associates

Konstantina Kaplani 

Konstantina graduated from the University of Patras with a Bachelor in Biology in 2015. During the last year of her undergraduate studies, she joined Professor Taraviras’ research team and worked on the role of Geminin in the differentiation of neural stem cells of the subventricular zone (SVZ) niche of the adult rodent brain. She was then enrolled in the two-year postgraduate program "Biomedical Sciences" offered by the Medical School of the University of Patras. In this program, she specialized in the field of Stem Cells & Regenerative Medicine, while her thesis focused on the characterization of an in vitro differentiation system of neural stem cells towards the ependymal cell lineage. She conducted her PhD in Prof. Taraviras’ group working on the role of GemC1/Lynkeas in the cell fate commitment of neural progenitors of the brain. She remained in the lab as Post Doctoral Research Associate.

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Doctoral Students 

Georgia Lokka

Georgia graduated in 2017 from a 5-year Integrated Master's Degree Program in the department of Biological Applications and Technology, University of Ioannina, Greece. Her diploma thesis was conducted in Prof. Taravira’s laboratory,studying the differentiation of neural stem cells towards ependymal cells, using an in vitro system. Subsequently, she attended the Postgraduate Course in Biomedical Sciences  of the Medical Department at the University of Patras, Greece. She was specialized in the field of Stem Cells and Regenerative Medicine and her research was focused on the effect of GemC1 absence in the neurogenic potential of radial glial cells in the subventricular zone. Currently, she is pursuing her PhD under the supervision of Prof.Taraviras, aiming to investigate the role of McIdas in ependymal cell differentiation.

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Maria Mougkogianni

Maria obtained her Bachelor’s Degree from the Department of Pharmacy of University of Patras in 2017 where she carried out her diploma thesis in the laboratory of Molecular Biology and Immunology of the aforementioned Department. Afterwards, Maria pursued her Master’s degree in the postgraduate study programme “Biomedical Sciences” of the Medical School of the same University specializing in the field of “Stem Cells and Regenerative Medicine”. She conducted her thesis regarding the regulation of DNA replication licensing of neural stem cells during early and mid corticogenesisin the lab of Prof. Stavros Taraviras. Currently, she is studying the role of inflammation signaling triggered by genomic instability in colon cancer progression in the context of her doctoral thesis under the supervision of Prof. Stavros Taraviras.

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Giorgos Kritikos

George is a PhD student that joined the laboratory in 2023. He has completed his Bachelor of Science in General Biology in the University of Ioannina, Greece and his Master of Science in Medical genetics and genomics, in the University of Glasgow. His current project in our laboratory is focused on the the molecular mechanisms through which GemC1 mediates reprogramming towards the ependymal lineage. Depending on our team’s latest results the project aims to identify the gene network and the cofactors that GemC1 interacts with to successfully reprogram cells into fully differentiated ependymal cells.

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Despoina Korrou-Karava

Despoina graduated with Honors in Biological Sciences from the University of Surrey in 2020. Her focus was on restoring peroxisomal biogenesis in genetically rescued Zellweger cell lines. During that time, she also undertook an Erasmus internship at Utrecht University studying the neurobiology of social play behavior in adolescent mice. She then completed a Master's degree in Molecular Biomedicine at the National & Kapodistrian University of Athens Medical School in 2022, investigating RNA Pol II fate upon UV lesion recognition in normal and Cockayne syndrome cells for her MSc thesis under Dr. Maria Fousteri's supervision. After a year as a Clinical Research Associate, Despoina is currently pursuing her Ph.D. at the Stem Cell Laboratory, University of Patras. Her research, supervised by Dr. Stavros Taraviras, delves into elucidating the role of Geminin family proteins' interactions for efficient cellular reprogramming to ependymal lineage.

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MSc Students

Anna Bibli

Anna graduated from the Department of Biology in the University of Patras in 2021. During the last year of her undergraduate studies she conducted her thesis in Dr. Taraviras' lab, where she studied "The role of GemC1 in the development of the murine diencephalon during embryogenesis". She has currently enrolled in the Postgraduate Study Program "Biomedical Sciences", in the Department of Medicine of the University of Patras, where she specializes  in the field of "Stem Cells and Regenerative Medicine". Her thesis investigates "The role of GemC1 in the developing murine hippocampus.

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Thomai Samouilidou

Thomai graduated from the Department of Biological Applications and Technology at University of Ioannina. She conducted her Diploma thesis investigating “The role of CDT1 overexpression in the cell cycle of THP-1, a cell line model of Acute Myeloid Leukemia”,  in Stem Cell Laboratory at University of Patras, under the supervision of Dr. Dimitris Karamitros. Currently, she is a Master's Degree student, specializing in the field of Stem Cells and Regenerative Medicine, while investigating “The role of genomic instability in Cancer Stem Cell properties and inflammation signaling in colon cancer cell lines”, under the supervision of Dr. Stavros Taraviras.

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LinkedIn: Thomai Samouilidou

Research Assistants

Anna Chantzara

Anna obtained her Bachelor's degree in Biology from the University of Sheffield in 2022. She continued her studies at the University of Cambridge and Cambridge Stem Cell Institute, where she conducted her Master's thesis on "the in-vitro characterization of Major Histocompatibility Complex class I knockout ESC-derived midbrain dopaminergic neurons and their potential as therapy for Parkinson's disease". In 2023, she joined Stem Cell Laboratory at the University of Patras as Research Assistant under the supervision of Prof. Stavros Taraviras.

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