Democritus University of Thrace
About the Institution
Democritus University of Thrace is one of the biggest universities in Greece regarding the number of students. DUTH is geographically developed in Thrace, comprised of 8 Schools, 18 Departments and a plethora of Postgraduate Programmes, more than 29.000 students (undergraduate students, postgraduate students and PhD candidates) and more than 700 people as research & teaching staff. The DUTH’s study programmes cover a range of innovative scientific fields with the School of Agronomy and Forestry Sciences in Orestiada, the School of Health Sciences and Educational Sciences in Alexandroupolis, the Schools of Law, Classical and Humanitarian Sciences, Social Policies and Economic Sciences and Sports in Komotini and the Technical School in Xanthi. It is clearly shown the interdisciplinarity concerning the educational and research strategies of DUTH.
Living in a fast-changing environment, DUTH continues to support educational and research excellence regarding the challenges of the future. DUTH aligns its research strategy with the fields of innovation, entrepreneurship, technology, new digital era and the attraction of funding from national and international partners.
OMIC-Engine objectives fall within the research strategy of the Department of Molecular Biology & Genetics of DUTH.
Research Interests
The basic research at the Democritus University of Thrace Hub and the Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics, is focused on:
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Biotechnology emphasising in applied microbiology and functional food
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Molecular Biology emphasising in insect of economic importance
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Health with an emphasis in human and animal disease
In parallel, a lot of programmes on applied research are applied and new services are developed, such us:
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Qualitative food analysis
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Antimicrobial evaluation of natural products
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Design and Development of functional food exploiting probiotics
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DNA Analysis and molecular characterisation of species, strains etc.
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Microbiome analysis exploiting Next Generation Sequencing
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Resistance evaluation in pesticides
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Molecular identification – biomarkers
Infrastructure
Library preparation and Next Generation Sequencing on Ιon GeneStudio S5 System for a broad range of applications in basic and applied research such as Metagenomics, Microbial whole genome sequencing, Targeted RNA sequencing, Small RNA sequencing and Whole transcriptome RNA-Seq.
Collaborating Research Laboratories
Laboratory of Molecular Regulation and Development of Diagnostic Technology
Associate Professor G. Skavdis gskavdis@mbg.duth.gr
Laboratory of Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology
Associate Professor I. Kourkoutas ikourkou@mbg.duth.gr
Laboratory of Molecular Biology of Development
Professor M. Gregoriou mgrigor@mbg.duth.gr
Laboratory of Gene Expression, Molecular Diagnostics & Advanced Therapeutics
Professor R. Sandaltzopoulos rmsandal@mbg.duth.gr