Natural products: applications, formulations

CIVIS partners

National and Kapodistrian University of Athens-NKUA:

-Helen Skaltsa, Professor of Pharmacognosy and Chemistry of Natural Products, Department of Pharmacy, NKUA, has been working in the field of chemistry of natural products and pharmacognosy for 40 years. She is Editor-in Chief of Phytochemistry, one of the leading international journals in the research field. She supervised 16 Ph.D., 60 M.Sc., and many diploma theses, while more are in progress. She has 210 publications in international scientific journals and more than 200 presentations in Congresses/Conferences (h-index:42; citations >5000). She was Vice Dean of the Faculty of Pharmacy, NKUA (2017-2020).

- Natassa Pippa, Assistant Professor of Pharmaceutical Technology, Department of Pharmacy, NKUA. She is working in the field of pharmaceutical technology. Her experience includes the design and development of lipid-based and polymer-based nanoparticles for drug delivery and targeting. She has also knowledge in several techniques for the physicochemical, morphological, and thermodynamic characterization of drug delivery systems and nanoformulations. She is supervising 3 Ph.D. students. She has 110 publications in peer-reviewed international journals, 15 chapters in scientific books, and more than 100 presentations at Greek and International Conferences (Scopus h-index:18).

- Georgia Valsami, Professor of Biopharmaceutics & Pharmacokinetics, Department of Pharmacy, NKUA. Her research activities focus on: i) drug protein and macromolecule binding and effect on drug solubility/dissolution/absorption, ii) development of novel dosage forms with optimized absorption, iii) pre-clinical and clinical PK/PD studies, iv) development/validation/application of analytical methods for drug assay in biological fluids, v) individualization of drug therapy. She has contributed to numerous peer reviewed journal articles, conferences presentations and lectures at National and International conferences (h-index 29; citations >2500). She has contributed to numerous research programs funded by National and EU organisations.

- Katerina Tiligada, Professor of Experimental Pharmacology, Medical School, NKUA, where she established and coordinates the Immunopharmacology unit. Her research focuses on the inflammatory and immune-related processes, cellular stress response and drug hypersensitivity reactions. She has published over 100 peer reviewed papers and 10 book chapters. She is President of the European Histamine Research Society, NC-IUPHAR, Corresponding Member of the International Union of Basic and Clinical Pharmacology/BSP Guide to PHARMACOLOGY and Editorial board member of the British Journal of Pharmacology. She served as Vice Chair of the Immunopharmacology Section of IUPHAR; Observer in the Rheumatology-Immunology Working Party - European Medicines Agency.

- Michail Christou Rallis is Αssociate Professor of Pharmaceutical Technology, Department of Pharmacy, NKUA. He is working in the field of dermatopharmacology and cosmetology. He studies the treatment of different skin diseases at a preclinical level. He is a member of “Oxygen Club of California” and “Society of Free Radical Research -Europe”. He supervised 5 PhD thesis (and 3 are in progress) and many Master and Diploma Thesis. He has 44 publications in international scientific journals and more than 138 presentations in international congresses. He is a conference organizer of the “Oxidative stress in skin biology and medicine” international congress.

- Nefeli Lagopati is an Assistant Professor in Biology-Nanomedicine at the Laboratory of Biology, at the Medicine School of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (NKUA). She performed her PhD at the Faculty of Biology, NKUA in cooperation with the NCSR "Demokritos". She has graduated from the Faculty of Physics, NKUA and received a MSc in Radiation Physics and a MSc in Advanced Materials. Among her research interests is the field of nanomedicine in cancer treatment. She served as a Substitute board member of the Hellenic Public Health Organization and as a consultant of the General Secretariat for Research and Innovation. Her work is reflected in a significant number of scientific publications and presentations in Congresses/Conferences.

-Vangelis D. Karalis is Associate Professor of Clinical Pharmacy - Pharmacokinetics at the Department of Pharmacy, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. He holds a BSc in Clinical Pharmacy, an MSc in Clinical Pharmacy, and a PhD in Pharmacokinetics. His research interests span the application of data science in clinical and pharmaceutical research, modeling in drug research and development, bioequivalence studies, in silico clinical trials, and artificial intelligence. Dr. Karalis possesses advanced computational skills, demonstrating proficiency in programming across various languages and the use of a wide range of software.

-Marilena Vlachou is an Associate Professor at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece. She has supervised numerous undergraduate students research diplomas, MSc dissertations, PhD theses and postdoctoral researchers’ work. She has published 75 articles in peer-reviewed scientific journals and presented her research work, as an invited speaker/participant, in more than 80 scientific conferences, and she is the authoress of 7 book chapters. She has evaluated a large number of research articles submitted to renowned journals, and has been the assessor of numerous research programs/proposals. She has been in charge or has participated in 14 competitive research programs. 

-Efstathia Ioannou is Associate Professor at the Department of Pharmacy at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. She received an Integrated Master’s degree from the Department of Agricultural Biotechnology at the Agricultural University of Athens in 2003 and obtained her MSc and PhD degrees from the Department of Pharmacy at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens in 2005 and 2009, respectively. She carried out postdoctoral research at Scripps Institution of Oceanography (UCSD, CA, USA), before returning to Greece in 2010 to take up a lectureship at the Department of Pharmacy (NKUA). Her research activities focus on the isolation, structure elucidation and biological activity evaluation of natural products mainly from marine macro- and microorganisms.

- Dr. Stefanos Kikionis is a chemist with a PhD degree in organic chemistry. Currently, he is a postdoctoral fellow at the Section of Pharmacognosy and Chemistry of Natural Products, Department of Pharmacy, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens and a committee member of the Phytochemical Society of Europe. His current research focuses on the isolation, characterization and exploitation of bioactive secondary metabolites and biopolymers from marine organisms as well as the investigation and development of nanofibrous bioactive scaffolds from marine natural products for drug release, wound healing and tissue engineering applications.

-Ekaterina-Michaela Tomou (M.Sc., Ph.D.) is a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Pharmacy (NKUA). Her Ph.D. project was funded by the Hellenic Foundation for Research & Innovation and her research is focused on the phytochemical analysis of various medicinal plants. She was selected as CIVIS ambassador 2021-2022 for NKUA, and she also participated in the UNICA conference 2021. So far, she has 2 chapters, 38 publications, and more than 15 presentations at scientific conferences (oral and poster presentations). She was a Fulbright Scholar (2019-2020) at Harvard Medical School.

-Paraskevi Papakyriakopoulou is a Post-Doctoral Researcher at the Department Pharmacy (NKUA) and the School of Chemical Engineering (NTUA). She received her Doctorate in October 2023, which was funded by the Hellenic Foundation for Research & Innovation and focused on the development and in vitro/ in vivo evaluation of nasal films as nose-to-brain delivery systems in neurodegenerative diseases. She has participated in the Erasmus Traineeship program both as a recent graduate at the University of Ferrara and as a PhD student at Trinity College of Dublin, respectively. Additionally, she is a co-author of 20 publications in esteemed peer-reviewed journals. Her work has been presented in several poster and oral presentations, and she has received the Best Abstract Award in the PharmSci360 conference of the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists.

-Dr. Maria Chountoulesi graduated in 2015 from the Depart. Pharmacy of NKUA, received in 2017 her master degree in “Industrial Pharmacy” and in 2020 her PhD in Pharmaceutical Nanotechnology, from the same department. She has participated in research programmes, in collaboration with greek pharmaceutical industry. She has already published 29 papers in peer-reviewed international journals, 5 chapters in scientific books and presented more than 35 presentations in conferences. She has been awarded with PhD Scholarship, implemented by the State Scholarships Foundation, with Erasmus+ Traineeship Fellowship and with 2022-Rigaku-ICTAC Promising Researcher Award, by the International Confederation for Thermal Analysis and Calorimetry.

University of Bucharest

- Eliza Oprea is a researcher and associate professor at the University of Bucharest with two Bachelor's Degrees (Chemistry and Pharmacy). She has co-authored over 60 publications (according to Web of Science) in Pharmacology, Microbiology, and Biochemistry, three book chapters, and seven books, and she has delivered more than 40 scientific communications at conferences. She has concerns evaluating biological properties (antimicrobial, antioxidant, hypoglycaemic, cicatrizing, and phytotoxic activity) of extracts from different sources through in vivo and in vitro studies. She also obtained and characterized phenolic compound extracts and essential oils from plants by various methods.

-Lavinia Ruta, lecturer, University of Bucharest, Faculty of Chemistry. She is a researcher with a double specialisation: pharmacy and chemistry. Her research is focused on: i) the applied biochemistry and molecular biology field, ii) study of the pro-oxidant and antioxidant activity of organic compounds, iii) the molecular mechanisms involved in Saccharomyces cerevisiae cells' response to environmental stress, iv) hydrogels for monitoring and healing of wounds. She has 46 ISI publications and participations as researcher in 10 national grants and 2 international grants, h-index 15 (Scopus).

Universidad Autónoma de Madrid-UAM

- Carmela Calés-Bourdet, professor, Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Department of Biochemistry, School of Medicine, UAM. Her research interests are oncogenes and cell cycle control, the role of epigenetic regulators, the effect of new antitumoral drugs in hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells. She was Vice-Rector for Internationalization and coordinator at UAM for CIVIS the last two years, Director of UAM Scientific Culture Unit, Vice-Dean for Research of the School of Medicine, Vice-Director at the IIBAS, elected member of the Executive Committee for Internationalization and Cooperation of the Spanish Conference of Rectors, CRUE and elected member of the Steering Committee of UNICA.

Sapienza Università di Roma

- Daniela De Vita, professor (Sapienza University of Rome), is working in the field of extraction and isolation of bioactive compounds from plants, food waste and by-products, and their analysis by chromatographic and spectroscopic techniques. She is lecturer of Pharmaceutical Botany and Biology, and courses at the Doctoral Programs. She supervised Ph. D., M. Sc. and diploma theses. She is Editor in Chief of the section Natural Products of Pharmaceuticals and member of the editorial board of Natural Product Research and Annali di Botanica. She is author of 72 publications in international journals and communications at national and international congresses.

University of Tübingen

Prof. Heike Brötz-Oesterhelt (EKUT) is a microbiologist working in antibacterial drug discovery in the academic as well as in the pharmaceutical industry setting for more than 25 years. After her PhD, she joined the Anti-Infectives Department of Bayer HealthCare, evaluating novel targets, developing lead structures and heading project teams in structure optimization campaigns. After 8 years in “big pharma”, she co-founded the Biotech company AiCuris, Wuppertal, Germany. In 2010, she returned to academia as a professor for Pharmaceutical Biology at the University of Duesseldorf, and since 2014 she is full professor for Microbiology at the University of Tübingen heading the Department of Microbial Bioactive Compounds. Currently, she is managing director of the Interfaculty Institute of Microbiology and Infection Medicine, Tübingen, speaker of the Transregional Collaborative Research Centre TRR261 “Molecular Mechanism of Antibiotic Action and Production”, co-speaker of the Cluster of Excellence “Controlling Microbes to Fight Infection” (both funded by the German Research Organisation DFG) as well as deputy speaker of the partner site Tuebingen within the German Center of Infection Research (DZIF). She successfully supervised 7 PhDs (plus further 10 PhD candidates in progress), 27 MSc / BSc and authored 76 publications (H-index 37, >6000 citations) plus approx.10 patents. Heike Brötz-Oesterhelt is particularly interested in molecular mechanisms of new antibiotic lead structures and operation modes of novel antibiotic targets.

Aix-Marseille University

Prof. Ling PENG is a research director in the Interdisciplinary Center on Nanoscience in Marseille (CINaM) at the French National Scientific Research Center (CNRS) in France. She is a leading scientist in dendrimer science and has pioneered the concept of self-assembling supramolecular dendrimers for delivering drugs, nucleic acid therapeutics and imaging agents. Her research team has been labelled by La Ligue Contre Le Cancer in France since 2016. Dr. Ling PENG was awarded with the Prize of Dr & Mme Henri Labbé of the French Academy of Sciences and the Distinguished Member of French Chemical Society.

CIVIS African partner

Makerere University (Uganda)

Dr. Anywar Godwin lectures at Makerere University, with over 12 years’ experience and over 70 publications in ethnopharmacology, ethnobotany and pharmacognosy. He is a member of several international bodies and academic editor, PlosOne and frontiers in Pharmacology. He is a Science Advice Skills mentor at the International Network for Government Science Advice and the African Academy of Sciences. He is a fellow of the: Global Young Academy, Carnegie Corporation of New York - American Studies Association, Africa Science Leadership Programme, and Uganda Academy of Sciences and the vice president Natural Products Network for Eastern & Central Africa Uganda Chapter.

Eduardo Mondlane University (Mozambique)

Hermínio Muiambo (UEM) is an Associate Professor in material sciences. He has been working with multidisciplinary research groups from South Africa, Italy and Germany in joint collaboration projects. As supervisor he has worked with several Master and Diploma Students at UEM and collaborates with 2 South African Universities as External Examiner. Through his work, 20 peer reviewed and 3 books were published (h-index: 7; citations >260). He’s affiliated to 3 professional organizations and speaks Portuguese and English. He has served as Deputy Dean for Research and Extension, at the Faculty of Sciences, from 2019 to 2023, and is currently Director for Planning, Quality Assurance and Institutional Studies at UEM.

University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa

Professor Yahya Choonara is internationally recognized as a pharmaceutical scientist at the forefront of teaching, researching and producing life-saving medicines that have an impact on infectious, hereditary and lifestyle diseases for 17 years. He is the Director of the Wits Advanced Drug Delivery Platform (WADDP) Research Unit at Wits University and also the Tier 1 South African Research Chair in Pharmaceutical Sciences. He received the SA Top IP Creator Award for his 28 granted patents and authored more than 357 ISI-accredited publications (H-index=55; >12200 citations). He has also mentored, supervised, and graduated more than 110 postgraduates and postdoctoral fellows in the field.