Christos Louis, nicknamed Kitsos, is a Greek Molecular Geneticist. He graduated from the Medical School of the University of Marburg in 1974 and joined the team of Prof. C.E. Sekeris, first at Marburg and then at the German Cancer Research Center Heidelberg, obtaining his doctoral degree in

Cell biology Cell biology (also cellular biology or cytology) is a branch of biology that studies the structure, function, and behavior of cells. All living organisms are made of cells. A cell is the basic unit of life that is responsible for the living and ...

from Heidelberg University in 1977. His work focuses on

Genomics Genomics is an interdisciplinary field of biology focusing on the structure, function, evolution, mapping, and editing of genomes. A genome is an organism's complete set of DNA, including all of its genes as well as its hierarchical, three-dim ...

and

Bioinformatics Bioinformatics () is an interdisciplinary field that develops methods and software tools for understanding biological data, in particular when the data sets are large and complex. As an interdisciplinary field of science, bioinformatics combi ...

of insects and vector-borne/ tropical diseases. He performed postdoctoral research as an

EMBO Embo ( gd, Eurabol, IPA: �iaɾəpɔɫ̪ is a village in the Highland Council Area in Scotland and the former postal county of Sutherland, about north-northeast of Dornoch. On 16 July 1988, Embo declared itself independent from the rest of the ...

fellow with

Walter J. Gehring Walter Jakob Gehring (20 March 1939 – 29 May 2014) was a Swiss developmental biologist who was a professor at the Biozentrum Basel of the University of Basel, Switzerland. He obtained his PhD at the University of Zurich in 1965 and after two ...

at the

Biozentrum University of Basel The Biozentrum of the University of Basel specializes in basic molecular and biomedical research and teaching. Research includes the areas of cell growth and development, infection biology, neurobiology, structural biology and biophysics, a ...

(1978-1979) and

Paul Schedl Paul Daniel Schedl (born November 7, 1947, in Iowa City, Iowa) is a Professor of Molecular Biology at Princeton University. Schedl has made significant contributions to the field of the control of gene expression in developmental systems using t ...

at the Department of Biology at Princeton University (1980-1983).

Fotis Kafatos Fotis Constantine Kafatos ( el, Φώτης Κ. Καφάτος; 16 April 1940 – 18 November 2017) was a Greek biologist. Between 2007-2010 he was the founding president of the European Research Council (ERC). He chaired the ERC Scientific Coun ...

invited him to join the staff of th
IMBB
of the, then, Research Centre of Crete in 1983; he subsequently became a member of the Faculty of the Department of Biology at the University of Crete where he was promoted to Full Professor in 1989. During his tenure he was the Chairman of his Department for a total of 11 years. Later, he was a founding member of the University of Crete's Programme on Bioethics. He retired from the University in 2014 although, as an emeritus, he kept his appointment as Research Staff at the IMBB, now an Institute of the Foundation for Research & Technology – Hellas. From December 2012 till April 2015 he was also the acting Head of Bioinformatics at the Centre for Functional Genomics at the Dept. of Experimental Medicine of the University of Perugia. He has served on a number of national (Greek) and international committees and boards, and he is a member of

. He was a member of several standing and ad hoc committees of the World Health Organization/TDR, including its Scientific and Technical Advisory Committee (STAC). Kitsos Louis has been a member of the editorial boards of several scientific journals and has co-authored more than 170 scientific publications. His research interests include: * Insect Molecular Genetics with emphasis on

; genome sequencing and post-genomic expression analysis. He was a member of the European Drosophila Genome Project and the Anopheles Genome Project. * Study of the molecular interactions between Anopheles and the

Malaria parasite ''Plasmodium'' is a genus of unicellular eukaryotes that are obligate parasites of vertebrates and insects. The life cycles of ''Plasmodium'' species involve development in a blood-feeding insect host which then injects parasites into a vert ...

. * Development of biomedical ontologies, especially for medical entomology, and databases. With his colleagues in Crete, he developed AnoDB/AnoBase, the first genetic databases for Anopheles, which later evolved into

VectorBase VectorBase is one of the five Bioinformatics Resource Centers (BRC) funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), a component of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), which is an agency of the United States Departm ...

. * Epidemiology and biology of vector-borne diseases. In his youth, Kitsos Louis was a competition swimmer for

Panathinaikos A.O. Panathinaikos Athlitikos Omilos ( el, Παναθηναϊκός Αθλητικός Όμιλος, literally in English: "Panathenaic Athletic Club" or Panathinaikos A.C.), also known simply as Panathinaikós , is a major Greek multi-sport club ba ...

having won several Greek national championships.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Louis, Christos 1948 births Living people Greek geneticists Scientists from Athens University of Marburg alumni Academic staff of the University of Perugia