Nektarios Tavernarakis was elected on Saturday, September 21, in the position of the Director of the Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology, at the Foundation for Research and Technology, in Heraklion, Crete, Greece. Dr. Tavernarakis has been heading the Neurogenetics and Ageing laboratory of the Institute, and is an elected Excellence Professor of Molecular Systems Biology at the Medical School of the University of Crete. He earned his Ph.D. degree at the University of Crete, and trained as a postdoctoral researcher at Rutgers University in New Jersey, USA. His research focuses on studies of neuronal function and dysfunction. His main interests are the molecular mechanisms of necrotic cell death in neurodegeneration and senescent decline, the molecular mechanisms of sensory transduction and integration by the nervous system, the interplay between cellular metabolism and ageing, and the development of novel genetic tools for biomedical research.

For his scientific accomplishments, Nektarios Tavernarakis has received several notable scientific prizes including a European Research Council (ERC) Advanced Investigator grant award, the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) Young Investigator award, the Bodossaki Foundation Scientific Prize for Medicine and Biology, the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel research award, the Empeirikeion Foundation Academic Excellence Prize, and the Research Excellence award of the Foundation for Research and Technology. Prof. Tavernarakis is also an elected member of EMBO.

Among multiple executive and administrative duties, Nektarios Tavernarakis has served as the National representative of Greece to the European Union FP7 Health programme, as a Member of the Greek National Life Sciences Council, as an elected Vice-President of the Researcher Association of the Foundation for Research and Technology, as an elected Member of the Scientific Council of IMBB, as the Vice-Chairman of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Austrian Academy of Sciences Institute for Biomedical Aging Research, and as a Member of the Executive Committee for the European Neurosciences Institutes Network. He is also serving in several grant/fellowship evaluation panels/committees and has been reviewing proposals for ERC, EMBO, EU FP7 and NSF, among others. He is also member of the editorial boards of several scientific journals, a member of the Faculty of 1000 in Biology/Medicine, and a Distinguished External Senior Fellow of the Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies, at the University of Freiburg, Germany.

For more information, please visit: http://www.elegans.gr/