Daphne Bazopoulou, Assistant Professor of the Department of Biology, University of Crete, joins IMBB as a collaborating faculty member
January 07. 2025
Professor Daphne Bazopoulou, an IMBB alumna, is now joining the Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology as a collaborating faculty member. Since 2021 she is an Assistant Professor (Biology of Stress & Aging Lab) at the Biology Department of University of Crete. Daphne studied biology at University of Crete and IMBB, and carried out her Ph.D. under the supervision of Nektarios Tavernarakis. After completing her Ph.D., she consecutively held two postdoc positions at the University of Michigan (Department of Mechanical Engineering and Department of Molecular, Cellular & Developmental Biology) and embarked on an interdisciplinary journey of exploring organismal aging and mechanisms that dictate it. She has worked extensively on correlations between ROS accumulation and changes in the C. elegans aging process. Her studies revealed that inter-individual differences in developmental Reactive Oxygen Species (ROS) levels contribute to variations in stress resistance and lifespan and provided the first demonstration of a redox-regulated histone methylation event. Daphne has also worked with microfluidic-based platforms for exploring the effects of aging and age-related pathologies in the nervous system and for identifying compounds through chemical screens that delay or reverse the age-dependent decline. Her team is currently studying the impact of early-in-life ROS as signalling molecules on a) C. elegans aging and age-related pathologies, and b) microbe-host interactions and C. elegans-host fitness. The goal is to identify redox-based interventions to promote health and longevity. She has received funding from several national and international sources (Fondation Sante, General Secretariat for Research and Technology, UoC-New Faculty Member Research Scholarship, UoC-Office of Technology Transfer Innovation Award, Nursery of Ideas - Region of Crete, NIH-T32, University of Michigan - Translational Research Fund) and is a coordinator in a European Consortium (TWIN4EarLiStAge, 2024-2027).