Dr Stefanos Siozos graduated from the Department of Environmental and Natural Resources Management (University of Ioannina, Greece) in 2003. He continued with his PhD in the same Department under the supervision of Prof. Kostas Bourtzis in the field of insect-microbe symbiosis. More specifically he studied the symbiotic relationships formed by Wolbachia bacteria, one of the most common intracellular bacteria known between arthropods. He recently completed his first postdoctoral training at the Research and Innovation Center - Fondazione Edmund Mach (FEM) in Italy within the frame of PURE project (Pesticide Use-and-risk Reduction in European farming systems with Integrated Pest Management). His research has been focused in the fields of a) functional genomics working with high-throughput transcriptom-wide sequencing and microarray data in order to study the transcriptional reprogramming of the hyperparasitic fungus Ampelomyces quisqualis, and b) microbial genomics working on the genome sequencing of Wolbachia Endosymbiont of Drosophila suzukii. He was recruited by the group of the University of Patras to work on the LOVE TO HATE project and specifically to prepare and setup the first version of a functional microarray chip to check the biodegradation potential of agricultural soils against pesticides. He got a Marie Curie Individual Fellowship during his recruitment period by the LOVE TO HATE project and he moved to Liverpool to acquire this position.

 

Dr Maria Tourna joined the group of University of Thessaly. Her main task in the Love to Hate project was to identify new pesticide catabolic genes and enzymes from soils and other substrates exhibiting enhanced capacities to degrade synthetic pesticides using functional genomics. Maria has a first degree in Agriculture, an MSc in Environmental Microbiology and a PhD in Environmental Microbiology from the University of Aberdeen. She has worked as a postdoctoral fellow in the University of Vienna (2008-2010) and the AgriResearch Institute of New Zealand from 2010 until recently. Maria has been working on the microbial mechanisms of nitrification with particular focus on the diversity and function of ammonia oxidizing bacteria and Archaea. She has 15 articles in leading journals like PNAS, FEMS Microbiology Ecology, Applied and Environmental Microbiology.

 

Dr Sara Gallego has a first degree in Biology and Biochemistry from the University of Navarra (Spain) in 2006. She obtained her Masters Degree in Advanced Microbiology and Biotechnology at the University of Barcelona in 2008. In 2012 she was awarded her PhD at the University of Barcelona in environmental microbiology and biotechnology. Her research focused the degradation of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and the analysis of the degrading bacterial populations. Afterwards she worked for an Italian remediation company thanks to a Marie Curie postdoctoral position. Sara Gallego joined the Love-to-Hate project (Marie Curie actions) in July 2015, recruited by INRA, Dijon working on the biodegradation of pesticide and the analysis through molecular methods of the effects of pesticides on soil microbial communities.

 

Dr Antonios Augoustinos received his PhD in the Department of Biology at the University of Patras, Greece, in 2005. He has been an Associated Researcher in the Department of Biology, and the Department of Environmental and Natural Resources Management at the University of Patras. He has also been a Visiting Lecturer in the Department of Biochemistry and Biotechnology at the University of Thessaly and, recently, (2013-2015) Consultant in the FAO/IAEA Agriculture and Biotechnology Laboratories in Seibersdorf, Austria. His research interests can be summarized as: a) molecular, genetic and cytogenetic studies on insects of agricultural and medical importance and b) exploring molecular and genetic approaches to study host – microbe associations and interactions. He is the author of 20 articles in peer reviewed journals. He was recruited by the University of Patras to replace Dr S. Siozios. His main research task in the frame of the LOVE TO HATE project was to setup the first version of a functional microarray chip to check the biodegradation potential of agricultural soils against pesticides.