CV - the Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência

CURRICULUM VITAE – ALEKOS ATHANASIADIS
Full Name
Address
Alexander A. Athanasiadis
Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciencia
Rua da Quinta Grande, 6
P-2780-156 Oeiras
Portugal
Home Address Rua Quinta Das Palmeiras 31
P-2780-149 Oeiras
Portugal
E-mail
Birth Date/Place
Citizenship
Spoken Languages
Programming Languages
alekos@igc.gulbenkian.pt
alekosathanasiadis@hotmail.com
6-June-1963, Athens/Greece
Greek
Greek, English, Italian
C, FORTRAN, Forth, Basic, Z80 assembly, Motorola
680XX assembly, Java 2, Perl, Python
STUDIES
1987-1989 Masters of Science in molecular biology at the Institute of Molecular Biology
and Biotechnology (IMBB, Heraklion/Crete).
1986-1987 Diploma theses with title “Structural studies on the chorion of Bombix Mori”.
(Involving electron microscopy and computer modeling).
Supervisor Prof. Stavros Hamodrakas.
1982-1987 Bachelor in Biology at the University of Athens
RESEARCH
2009-today
Principal Investigator at the Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência. Head of the
Protein-Nucleic Acids Interactions Lab
2008-2009 Marie Curie Research Fellow at the Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência.
2008-2009 Research Scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (in absence of
leave)
2005-2008 Research Scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Collaboration
with Prof. Alexander Rich.
2003-2008 Visiting scientist at Lehigh University (Bethlehem/Pennsylvania).
Collaboration with Prof. Stefan Maas.

2000-2005 Postdoctoral Researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
(Boston/USA). Structural and Computational studies of the RNA editing
process and the responsible enzymes (ADARs). In the laboratory of Prof.
Alexander Rich
1999-2000 Researcher position at the Institute Jozef Stefan (Ljubljana/Slovenia). Work
on the structure determination of Equinatoxin II, a eukaryotic membrane-poreforming
toxin. Supervisor Dr. Dusan Turk.
1995-1999 Postdoctoral position at International Center for Genetic Engineering and
Biotechnology (ICGEB, Trieste/Italy) with subject "Structural studies on a
single chain repressor analog of the 434 repressor". Parallel work entitled
“The role of metal ions in the catalytic function of the PvuII endonuclease”.
1992-1995 Parallel work on “Crystallographic studies on BseCI thermostable methylase”.
1989-1995 Ph.D. in the laboratory of Protein Crystallography of IMBB with subject
“Determination of the crystal structure of the Pvu II restriction enzyme”.
(Obtained 18/5/95)
FELLOWSHIPS AND AWARDS
1981 IKY award for excellence in Greek University exams.
1992 LIP (Large Installation Project) for synchrotron data collection.
1993 Short Term EMBO fellowship at EMBL Hamburg.
1995-1997 Long Term EMBO fellowship for research at the International Center for
Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (ICGEB) of UNIDO
1997-1998 UNIDO postdoctoral fellowship.
2000-2002 Human Frontiers Long Term Fellowship (HFSP) for "Structural studies of the
Z-DNA binding domains of ADAR1"

GRANTS
2009-2013
Marie Curie International Reintegration Grant: PIRG03-GA-2008-231000. Principal
Investigator Alexander Athanasiadis. Funding agency: European Commission. Project title:
“Molecular basis of foreign nucleic acids recognition in innate immunity”. Amount
€100000
2011-2014
Research and Development Grant: PTDC/BIA-PRO/112962/2009. Principal
Investigator Alexander Athanasiadis. Funding agency: Fundação para a Ciência e a
Tecnologia. Project title: “Recognition of Pathogen Nucleic Acids by Innate Immunity:
Structure-Function Studies of the Cytoplasmic DNA Receptor DAI Pathway”. Amount
€145331
CRYSTALLOGRAPHIC SOFTWARE EXPERIENCED WITH:
XPLOR, O, InsightII; Discover, Xsight, CCP4, FRODO, XtalView, MAIN, Weblab, Solve,
Sharp, EPMR, PYMOL
TECHNICAL EXPERTISE
Crystallography, Protein Modeling, Protein Purification, Molecular Cloning, Yeast Two
Hybrid Systems, Genome Bioinformatics, Genetic Algorithms
TEACHING EXPERIENCE
2012 Lecturer at the FCUL Bioinformatics Masters Program
2012 Lecturer at the ITQB PhD program: Nuclec acids structure
2011 Lecturer for the MSc program in Bioinformatics and computational Biology – FCUL.
Organizer Dr. Jose Pereira Leal.
2011 Organizer of the Structural Biology classes of the PIBS PhD program at IGC.
2010 Organizer of the Structural Biology classes of the PIBS PhD program at IGC.
2009 Lecturer at the PIBS PhD program
2009 Organizer of the Structural Biology classes of the PIBS PhD program at IGC.
2004 Lecturer at the Advanced Undergraduate Studies of MIT with subject the RNA editing
process and title “RNA editing: from A to I”.

2004 Lecturer in the MIT's Independent Activities Period (IAP) seminar series. Title: “The
New Biology of RNA” at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Organizer: Chris Burge
1994 Lecturer at the “ESF Course on Macromolecular Crystallography”. Heraklion,
Crete Greece.
.
OTHER SCIENTIFIC ACTIVITIES
1988-1993 Responsible for the sequence database management and the related software at
the Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology. (EMBNET node)
PARTICIPATION IN MEETINGS AND WORKSHOPS
Erice 1988, Crystallography of Molecular Biology, Organizer: W. Hol
Spetsai 1989, September 3 - 16, Protein Engineering, Organizers: B.F.C. Clark (Chairman),
A.E. Evangelopoulos, A.R. Fersht
Heraklion 1990, European Union-sponsored Practical Course: Protein Crystallography
Heraklion 1994, ESF Course on Macromolecular Crystallography
Lindau 1994, Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings
Prague 1998, 15th - 20th August, European Crystallography Meeting
Heidelberg 1998, CCP4/EU Advanced Methods Refinement Workshop
Trieste 1998, 4-8 May, Structural Biology and Functional Genomics (NATO Advanced
Research Workshop) Organizers: Sándor Pongor (ICGEB, Trieste, Italy), E. Morton
Bradbury Los Alamos National Labs, USA

San Diego, CA 2002, 34th Annual In Silico Biology Conference.
Ventura, CA 2003, Gordon conference on RNA editing, Organizer: Brenda Bass. Poster
Presentation: A-to-I editing in the human transcriptome
Ventura, CA, 2005, Gordon conference on RNA editing, Organizers: Donna M. Driscoll &
Maurille J. Fournier. Poster Presentation: The crystal structure of the Zbeta domain of the
RNA editing enzyme ADAR1
Carcavelos 2009, RNA 2009 meeting
Structural and Computational Studies on A to I RNA editing
Galveston TX, 2009, Gordon Conference ob RNA editing. Organisers Juan D. Alfonzo &
Marie Ohman Poster Presentation: ADAR1-Za: From A to Z
Lisbon 2012, RNA 2012 Portuguese society

PUBLICATIONS
1) Athanasiadis A., Gregoriu M., Thanos D., Kokkinidis M. & Papamatheakis J. (1990).
Complete nucleotide sequence of the Pvu II restriction enzyme gene from Proteus
vulgaris. Nucl. Acids Res. 18. 6434-6435. (Citations 19)
2) Athanasiadis A. & Kokkinidis M. (1991). Purification, Crystallization and Preliminary
X-ray Diffraction Studies of the Pvu II Endonuclease. J. Mol. Biol. 222. (Citations 7)
3) Athanasiadis A., Vlassi M., Kotsifaki D., Tucker P.A., Wilson K.S. & Kokkinidis M.
(1994). Crystal structure of the PvuII endonuclease reveals extensive structural
homologies to EcoRV. Nature Structural Biology. 1. 469-475. (Citations 92)
4) Perrakis A., Constadinides C., Athanasiades A. & Hamodrakas S.J. (1995). PBM: a
software package to create, display and manipulate interactively models of small
molecules and proteins on IBM-compatible PCs. CABIOS 11. 141-145.
5) Antcheva N., Patthy A., Athanasiadis A., Tchorbanov B., Zakhariev S., Pongor S. (1996)
Primary structure and specificity of a serine proteinase inhibitor from paprika
(Capsicum annuum) seeds. Biochim. Biophys. Acta 1298 (1), 95-101 (Citations 18)
6) Athanasiadis A., Papanikolau Y., Rina M., Papadovasilaki M., Petratos K., Bouriotis V.,
Daughter S. & Kokkinidis M. (1997). Purification, Crystallization and Preliminary X-ray
Analysis of the M.BseCI DNA Methyltransferase from Bacillus stearothermophilus.
Acta Crystallographica D53, 477-479 (Citations 2)
7) Magyar Z., Meszaros T., Miskolczi P., Deak M., Feher A., Brown S., Kondorosi E.,
Athanasiadis A., Pongor S., Bilgin M., Bako L., Koncz C., Dudits D., (1997) Cell cycle
phase specificity of putative cyclin-dependent kinase variants in synchronized alfalfa
cells. Plant Cell 9, 223-235 (Citations 140)
8) Athanasiadis A., Anderluh G., Macek P. & Turk D. (2001). Crystal structure of the
soluble form of Equinatoxin II, a pore forming toxin from the Sea Anemone
Actinia Equina. Structure (Cell Press) 9, 341-346. (81 Citations)
9) Brown, B. A., 2nd, Athanasiadis, A., Hanlon, E. B., Lowenhaupt, K., Wilbert, C. M.,
and Rich, A. (2002). Crystallization of the Zalpha domain of the human editing
enzyme ADAR1 complexed with a DNA-RNA chimeric oligonucleotide in the

left-handed Z-conformation. Acta Crystallogr. D Biol. Crystallogr. 58, 120-123.
(Citations 1)
10) Rashkova, S., Athanasiadis, A., and Pardue, M.-L. (2003). Intracellular targeting of Gag
proteins of the Drosophila telomeric retrotransposons. J. Virol. 2003 Jun; 77(11):6376-84.
(31 Citations)
11) Spyridaki A., Matzen C., Lanio T., Jeltsch A., Simoncsits A., Athanasiadis A., Scheuring-
Vanamee E., Kokkinidis M., Pingoud A. (2003) Structural and biochemical
characterization of a new Mg(2+) binding site near Tyr94 in the restriction
endonuclease PvuII. J Mol Biol. 2003 Aug 8;331(2):395-406. (11 Citations)
12) Athanasiadis A, Rich A. & Maas S. (2004). Widespread A-I RNA editing in Alucontaining
mRNAs in the human transcriptome. PLoS Biology 2004 Dec, 2(12).
(164 Citations)
13) Athanasiadis, A., Maas, S., Placido, D. Brown, BA. 2 nd , Lowenhaupt, K. & Rich, A.
(2005). The crystal structure of the Zb domain from the RNA editing enzyme
ADAR1. J Mol Biol. 2005 Aug 19; 351(3):496-507. (19 Citations)
14) Placido D., Brown BA II, Lowenhaupt K., Rich A. and Athanasiadis A. (2007). A
Left Handed RNA Double Helix Bound by the Zα Domain of the RNA Editing
Enzyme ADAR1. Structure 2007 Apr; 15(4):395-404. (19 Citations)
15) De Rosa M, de Sanctis D, Rosario AL, Archer M, Rich A, Athanasiadis A (Corresponding
author), Carrondo MA. (2010). Crystal structure of a junction between two Z-DNA
helices. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U S A. 2010 May 18; 107(20):9088-92. (2 Citations)
16) Santos ME, Athanasiadis A, Leitão AB, Dupasquier L, Sucena E. (2011), Alternative
splicing and gene duplication in the evolution of the FoxP gene sub-family. Mol Biol Evol.,
Jan;28(1):237-47 (2 Citations)
17) Athanasiadis A. (2012) Zalpha-domains: At the intersection between RNA editing and
innate immunity. Seminars in cell & developmental biology 2011;
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.semcdb.2011.11.001.
ISI citation counts as of 23/4/2012. Total citations 608 – Average 35.7
H-index 10

BOOK CHAPTERS AND PUBLISHED MEETING ABSTRACTS AND MANUSCRIPTS IN PREPARATION
Dudits D., Magyar, Z., Deak, M., Meszaros, T., Miskolczi, P., Feher, A., Brown, S., Kondorosi, E.,
Athanasiadis, A., Pongor, S., Bako, L., Koncz, Cs. and Gyorgyey, J., (1996), "Cyclin- and Caclium
Dependent Kinase Families: Response of Cell Division Cycles to Hormone and Stress Signals",
D. D. a. D. I. D. Francis, London (Book Chapter)
Maas, S., Athanasiadis, A. & Rich, A. (2003). A-to-I editing in the human transcriptome.
FASEB Journal 2003 Mar 17, 17 (5): A1307-A1307 (Meeting abstract)
A. Athanasiadis and A. Rich. (2007). On the sugar pucker choice in nucleic acid chains