The main scientific interests of our group cover the following areas:
A. Development and application of functional proteomics approaches based in mass spectrometry using state-of-the-art Top-Down and Bottom-Up approaches in order to identify proteins and determine changes in their protein abundance, localization, dynamics, post-translational modifications and interaction partners in any biological system.
Β. Integration of global and targeted proteomics data with other available data (epigenomics, transcriptomics, metabolomics, bioenergetics clinical etc) towards a Systems Biology understanding of cell biology under physiological and pathological conditions, detection of new biomarkers for diagnosis and prognosis, and the identification of new drug targets and therapies via drug-re-purposing.
C. Mechanistic studies of essential biological processes under normal and perturbed conditions in model organisms using a multi-disciplinary approach including biochemistry, molecular biology, functional proteomics, biophysics and bioinformatics.
D. In-silico and in vitro drug-re-purposing through the application of state-of-the-art methodologies of systems biology and pharmacology (proteomics, bioinformatics, metabolomics etc).
The biological systems, which are under investigation in our research projects are:
A. The signaling pathways involved in human lymphoma pathogenesis. Using human lymphoma cell lines as models under different conditions e.g. after applying a multitude of drugs under study, targeted mutation of protein expression, different stages and subtypes, etc.
B. Protein translocation and secretion in relation to human and plant pathogenicity. The primary objective is to shed light on the dynamics of protein translocation and secretion events such as Type III protein secretion system, the major weapon of bacterial human and plant pathogens.
C. Membrane protein biogenesis, interactions and modifications in model organisms. We are employing cutting edge MS-based proteomics combined with molecular biology and biochemistry in order to study in detail the regulatory modules of membrane protein biogenesis, interactions and function under different conditions in several model organism.