Coordinators: K. Anastasiasidis, I. Rekanos, G. Papazisis
Development of innovative drugs in Greece: utopia or a realistic future goal
Achilleas Gravanis
From the era of the “Pylos” to the era of Centaurs
Georgios Pavlakis
Research and Innovation in Health
Who the
Speakers are:
Speakers
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Georgios PapazisisProfessor of Basic and Clinical Pharmacology at the Department of Clinical Pharmacology, School of Medicine, Aristotle University of ThessalonikiDr. Georgios Papazisis is a Full Professor of Basic and Clinical Pharmacology at the Department of Clinical Pharmacology, School of Medicine, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece.
He is a specialized Psychiatrist and has also obtained the Greek Medical board certification of the medical sub-specialty of Clinical Pharmacology.
Currently, he is the Medical Director of the Clinical Research Unit of the School of Medicine, at the Papageorgiou Hospital in Thessaloniki, coordinating early phase clinical trials.
Dr Papazisis currently serves as the:
· Co-chair of the newly formed Special Interest Group (SIG) on ‘Pragmatic trials’ of the European Network of Centres for Pharmacoepidemiology & Pharmacovigilance (ENCePP) coordinated by the European Medicines Agency (EMA).
· Administrator for the Aristotle University Organization of the NIH US National Library of Medicine clinical trial registry ClinicalTrials.gov.
· Pharmacovigilance referent person for the Greek National Hub in the conect4children (c4c) project
· Chair of the Committee for Bioethics and Medical Ethics of the School of Medicine.
· Principal Investigator for the Phase III study: An Efficacy and Safety, Phase III, Multi-center, Double-Blind, Randomized Controlled Study Comparing 2 Active Doses of CYB003 and Placebo in Eligible Participants with Major Depressive Disorder (EMBRACE)
Dr Papazisis is member of the management Board of the Greek National Regulatory Organization for Medicines (ΕΟΦ) and also the Greek delegate of the UEMS (Union Européenne des Médecins Spécialistes) section of Pharmacology, UEMS member of the i. newly established Federation for Medical Ethics and also the ii. thematic Federation for Equality, Diversity & Inclusivity. -
George PavlakisScientist Emeritus, National Cancer Institute, Visiting Scholar, Emory UniversityDr. Pavlakis has extensive research and development experience in molecular biology, virology, and immunology. He has directed both basic research and clinical development projects based on his pioneering research achievements. He developed the first mammalian cell production of mature Human Growth Hormone, a successful biotechnology product. This was one of the first licensed biotechnology products using mammalian cell expression technologies, together with Genentech’s TPA. He also developed important technologies and insights used widely, including: codon/RNA optimization methods that have found wide applications in biotechnology, gene therapy protocols and many vaccines, including all Adenovirus vaccines and most nucleic acid vaccines; DNA vaccines for HIV providing strong and long-lasting protective immunity in macaques; lipid formulations for nucleic acid delivery in humans; strong fluorescent GFP mutants that are in wide use in biology.
He studied the molecular biology, organization and expression strategy of HIV and discovered important functions of its regulatory factors Tat and Rev. He described the first transcriptional activator on oncoretroviruses, the Tax protein of HTLV-I and the first posttranscriptional regulatory factor controlling mRNA export from the nucleus, the Rev protein of HIV-1. His studies provided new insights on the biology of several viruses. His work has also led to the development of innovative biotechnology drugs and gene therapy procedures. He presently works on cancer immunotherapies and vaccines as well as on HIV vaccines.
In addition, he developed several vectors and drugs in clinical trials for AIDS vaccines and cancer immunotherapy. The latest immunotherapy drug, hetIL-15, is in clinical trials by Novartis. Recent clinical trials using cGMP materials developed in his lab include NCT02452268, NCT04261439 (cancer immunotherapy; publications PMID: 34799399, 33671252). NCT04408209 (COVID19 trial). NCT03181789 [HVTN 119], NCT03560258 [ACTG A5369], NCT04357821 (AIDS vaccine trials, recent publications PMID: 41326736, 38051788, 39088271).
Dr. Pavlakis is a member of several professional societies, including the American Society for Clinical Investigation and the American Association of Physicians. He is a highly cited researcher, has authored more than 250 publications and is inventor of more than 70 US and International patents licensed to more than 30 pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, including Novartis, Wyeth, Merck, Pfizer, Sigma. Due to his patented technologies, he has been elected Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors.
Doctor Honoris Causa, from his alma mater, University of Athens Medical School
Order of the Phoenix Commander Gold Cross of the Hellenic Republic
Corresponding Member, Cyprus Academy of Sciences, Letters and Arts
Bibliography:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=Pavlakis%2C+GN&sort=date&size=50 -
Achilleas GravanisCEO of ReNeuroCell ThearapeuticsAchilleas Gravanis, former Professor of Pharmacology, School of Medicine, University of Crete, and Researcher at the Institute of Molecular Biology & Biotechnology (IMBB), FORTH (Foundation for Research and Technology – Hellas). He is an Adjunct Professor of Pharmacology at the School of Pharmacy, Northeastern University, Boston.
He has served as a member of the European Commission’s Biomedical Research Programme Committee, a member of the Council of the Hellenic Authority for Higher Education Quality Assurance (HAHE), and President of the Sectoral Scientific Council of Life Sciences of the National Council for Research & Technology (NCRT).
He has also served as a member of the Scientific Council of the Hellenic Foundation for Research & Innovation (HFRI), responsible for Life Sciences, and as an Associate Principal Investigator at Emulate, a spin-off of the Wyss Institute/Harvard Medical School.
He is a co-founder of the biotechnology spin-off companies Bionature SA and ReNeuroCell Therapeutics, which are engaged in the development of new therapies for neurodegenerative diseases and brain injury.
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Kyriakos AnastasiadisRector of Aristotle University (AUTH) & Professor of Cardiac SurgeryKyriakos Anastasiadis, Professor of Cardiac Surgery, is the Rector of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki since 2025.
He obtained his MD from Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in 1991 and his doctoral thesis (PhD) in 2004. Since 2011 he serves as Head of Cardiothoracic Department at AHEPA University Hospital in Thessaloniki. In 2017 he was elected Deputy Head and between 2020-2024 he served as Head of the Aristotle University School of Medicine and President of the Biomedical Research and Education Special Unit.
Kyriakos Anastasiadis is a pioneer and key-opinion-leader in the field of minimal invasive extracorporeal technologies, founder of Minimal Invasive Extracorporeal Technologies International Society (MiECTiS). Moreover, he founded in 2015 the Postgraduate Course on Extracorporeal Technologies at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki School of Medicine, which is the only accredited program in Greece by the respective European Board. He is fellow of the European Board of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery (FETCS), the European Society of Cardiology (FESC), and the American College of Chest Physicians (FCCP). He has been appointed as President of the National Boards of Cardiothoracic Surgery for Northern Greece.
He has edited 8 books and more than 16 book chapters, while he authored numerous publications which received more than 3,000 citations. He obtained the Best Innovator Award by the Royal Society of Medicine in 2010 and a Honorary Distinction by the Director of Cardiac Centre in Mauritius, Africa after completion of a humanitarian philanthropic mission. He was recognized by the Greek Reporter as one of the Greeks Who Left their Mark in 2018. -
Ioannis RekanosVice Rector of Research and Innovation, Aristotle UniversityProf. Ioannis T. Rekanos was born in 1970 in Thessaloniki, Greece. He received the Diploma degree (M.Sc.) in Electrical Engineering in 1993 and the Ph.D. degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering in 1998, both from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (AUTH), Thessaloniki, Greece. His doctoral dissertation focused on inverse electromagnetic scattering problems.
From 2000 to 2002, he was a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Radio Laboratory, Helsinki University of Technology (now Aalto University), Finland, where he held a Marie Curie Individual Fellowship. Since 2006, he has been a member of the Faculty of Engineering at AUTH. He is currently Professor of Wave Propagation in the Department of Telecommunications, School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, AUTH.
His research interests include electromagnetic and acoustic wave propagation, inverse scattering, computational electromagnetics, fractional calculus, digital signal processing, and biomedical applications. Prof. Rekanos is a Senior Member of IEEE and a member of the Technical Chamber of Greece. From 2022 to 2025, he served as Head of the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering. He currently serves as Vice Rector for Research and Innovation at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki.