Dr. Electra Gizeli, Professor in the Department of Biology at the University of Crete and Deputy Director at IMBB received the highly esteemed Fulbright Visiting Scholars Award 2025-2026 to spend 4 months at Harvard Medical School.
During her Fulbright Scholarship, she will join Prof. Michael Springer’s lab in the Department of Systems Biology at Harvard Medical School. Her research will focus on developing a pipeline for the rapid and efficient production of diagnostic tools at the point-of-care. This includes improving sample collection and transport methods, developing isothermal molecular assays based on available genome sequences and, lab-optimization prior to clinical evaluation. Prof. Gizeli will also participate in the diagnostic accelerator at the Wyss Institute, exploring translational-research opportunities on pandemic preparedness and the development of cost-effective, high throughput point-of-care diagnostics.
This collaboration is expected to further strengthen research ties and innovation between the University of Crete / IMBB and Harvard Medical School.
Dr. Gizeli’s research spans several areas, namely biosensor/biophysics, molecular diagnostics, nano biotechnology and biomedical engineering. She has authored over 100 scientific publications and holds 7 patents. She is also the co-founder of two FORTH spin-off companies developing point-of-care diagnostic technologies. Throughout her career, she has coordinated 33 multidisciplinary research projects, securing circa 32M€ (10M€ for her group) in competitive funding, including two HFSP grants. She has supervised and trained 25 post-docs, 15 Ph.D., and >70 M.Sc. and undergraduate students. Additionally, she has established and leads the IMBB Mentoring Scheme, supporting early-career researchers in their professional development. She is actively involved in public science outreach activities. Prof. Gizeli is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC) (2016), member of the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) (2023) and of the Academia Europaea (2024).
