Leadership in Clinical Research: Striving for Ethics & Excellence

Former Secretary of the National Ethics Committee for Clinical Trials (NEC).

Graduate of the School of Pharmacy Univ. Milan, Holder of a PhD from the Department of Medicine, EKPA, with a research subject in Experimental Pharmacology (psychoneuropharmacology) and a Master’s Degree in Public Health, National School of Public Health, Athens. Undergraduate and Postgraduate experience in preclinical research, in the field of Psychoneuropharmacology at the Institute of Pharmacology and Pharmacognosy, University of Milan, at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), Saint Elisabeth’s Hospital, Washington D.C., U.S.A. and at the Laboratory of Experimental Pharmacology, Medical School of Athens.

Her professional experience and expertise is focused on Clinical studies with a long career in the Pharmaceutical Industry, CRO and as a Freelancer. She has published articles in authoritative international and Greek scientific journals and has presented preclinical and clinical studies at international and Greek conferences. Member of Scientific societies. Lecturer in Master’s Programs and educational/training programs of public and private entities related to Bioethics/ Ethics/Clinical studies, Pharmacovigilance, etc. Also a speaker at the Educational Seminars and conferences organized by EOF on the topic of clinical trials. During her appointment as Secretary of the National Ethics Committee for Clinical Trials, additionally she got involved with the implementation of the European Regulation on Clinical Trials and in particular with the “European Online Portal for Clinical Trials”, as well as she participated at the meetings of the Expert Group on Clinical Trials/ European Commission.

Independent Medical Consultant Internal Medicine, Pharmaceutical Medicine Consultant, Research & Experimental Development Consultant

EL.E.F.I. President and IFAPP President-elect

Dr Baroutsou is a Licensed Physician certified in Internal Medicine.

She studied in Greece, Sweden and France, worked as a Hospital Physician & Clinical Investigator in Greece and as Pharmaceutical Physician in Clinical Development and Medical Affairs in Pharmaceutical Industry leadership roles in Greece, France and Switzerland with her latest position being Western Europe Chief Scientific Officer at Novartis. She has a wealth of experience in medicines development with a contribution to more than 200 global clinical development programmes that led to the successful introduction of innovative drugs and publications for the clinical practise of Medicine. 

Currently an Independent Medical Consultant and Pharmaceutical Medicine Consultant, affiliated with Greek Medical Schools’ postgraduate courses on Infectious Diseases, Molecular Basis of Human Diseases, Clinical Pharmacology Therapeutics and Current Challenges in Public Health.

Barbara is the President of Hellenic Society of Pharmaceutical Medicine and IFAPP President Elect.

Moreover, she is a member of EFGCP core Faculty, ACG Deree Graduate School Professional Studies in Pharmaceutical Medicine, a Stavros Niarchos Foundation Bioethics Academy Alumni and Editor-Reviewer of Greek and International Journals -including Frontiers in Pharmacology, Drug Outcomes Research &Policies.

Professor of Internal Medicine. Director of Master (MSc) Program of Infectious Diseases, 4th Department of Internal Medicine, ATTIKON University Hospital, Greece. Guest Professor, Center for Sepsis Control and Care, Jena University Hospital, Germany.

Professor Evangelos J. Giamarellos-Bourboulis is an internal medicine and infectious diseases specialist. His main research contribution is immunomodulation in sepsis and in auto-inflammatory disorders, for which he was awarded the Young Investigator Research Award by the European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases. He has received a total of 39 awards for his studies on sepsis and has published 433 peer-reviewed articles in international scientific journals.

Professor Giamarellos-Bourboulis is a leading expert in immunomodulatory treatment of septic shock and he has contributed to the recognition of hidradenitis suppurativa as an auto-inflammatory disorder. He is the current President of the European Shock Society, chairs the Hellenic Sepsis Study Group and he is the coordinator of Hellenic Sepsis Study Group (www.sepsis.gr).

Sossanna Kolyva, has a PhD in Molecular Biology and is a member of Development Department of the Hellenic Pasteur Institute.

Studies
BSc in Biology, Department of Biology, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (NKUA). Diplome de Bacteriologie of the Pasteur Institute, Grands Cours, Institut Pasteur. PhD Thesis, Unite des Enterobacteries, Institut Pasteur, Paris.

Professional Activities
1987-2003: Research Assistant in the Bacteriology Department of the Hellenic Pasteur Institute (HPI), collaboration in research projects for the study of antimicrobial resistance and the bacterial virulence.

2003-2012: Detachee to the General Secretariat for Research and Technology. Greece’s Delegate in several European Initiatives: 7FP “HEALTH” Programme, Innovative Medicines Initiative, Programmes of Art.185, EDCTP and AAL, ESFRI Research Infrastructures, BBMRI, INFRAFRONTIER, EATRIS, HiPER, ELI, COPAL, ERINHA, EURO-BIOIMAGING. ERAnets: E-RARE, TRANSCAN, SynBio, Joint Programming Initiatives’ (Neurogenerative Diseases), JAMPR (Antimicrobial Resistance). Elaboration of the Greek Positions for all the above activities and communication of the relevant information in the national academic community.

2012- Appointment in the Development Department of the Hellenic Pasteur Institute. Collaboration with the Greek Pharma Industry. Establishment of collaborations with other Research Centers and Universities. Collaboration of the HPI with European Programmes e.g. TRANSVAC (vaccines platform), RD-CONNECT (biobanking/rare diseases). She is member of the Steering Committee appointed by the Ministry of Health for the development of the Greek Node of the Active and Healthy Ageing, European Innovation Partnership.

Collaboration with the Pasteur Institute in Paris for the establishment of the Responsible Research and Innovation actions in the HPI.

Collaboration with the Municipality of Athens for the development of educational interventions projects in schools in low socioeconomic areas of the city.

Member of the Programme Committee for the SC1 “Health, Demographic Change and Wellbeing”.  Member of the Committee of States Representatives of the Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI).

Other professional activities
Participation in the writing and editing of work programmes of “HEALTH” thematic of the 7FP, IMI, EDCTP and AAL. Organization of conferences for the TRANSCAN and SynBio projects.

Member of the Selection Committee for the General Director and for the Administrative Director of  BBMRI-ERIC and responsible for the Infectious Diseases Workstream of the Work Programme of BBMRI-ERIC. Collaboration in the national project for the establishment of Biobanks in the frame of BBMRI-GR with Biomedical Research Foundation of the Academy of Athens. Collaboration in the project “Infrastructure for Systems Biology-Europe/ISBE” of the ESFRI Roadmap 2010, with Biomedical Research Foundation of the Academy of Athens.  Representative of Greece in the ERAC Committee of the European Council and the relative Steering Board during the Greek Presidency.

Specially appointed Professor, Kanagawa Dental University, and Member of the IFAPP Ethics Working Group

Chieko Kurihara is Special Appointment Professor at Kanagawa Dental University, and Senior Researcher/Vice-Chair of the Certified Review Board, at the National Institutes for Quantum Science and Technology, Japan. Her expertise is bioethics, especially research ethics.

After graduation in 1983 from Department of Economics, School of Political Science and Economics, Waseda University, she has been engaged in book/journal publications, editorial and theater works and then in bioethics study. Also she has been working long time as an Editorial Staff and then Editor of a Japanese journal Clinical Evaluation, which was established in 1972, dealing with science and ethics of clinical trial.

She has been a member of Working Group on Ethics, International Federation of Associations of Pharmaceutical Physicians and Pharmaceutical Medicine (IFAPP) (2017～). She has been also engaged in other international activities, as a member of Task Group 109, Ethics in radiological protection for diagnosis and treatment, International Commission of Radiological Protection (ICRP) (2018～), following the previous Task Group aimed for ICRP Publication 138 to identify ethical foundation of radiological protection system of the ICRP.

Her recent publication with Working Group on Ethics of IFAPP is to discuss data-driven research with an objective to make a proposal for future revision of the World Medical Association’s Declaration of Helsinki:

Kurihara C, Baroutsou V, Becker S, Brun J, Franke-Bray B, Carlesi R, Chan A, Collia LF, Kleist P, Laranjeira LF, Matsuyama K, Naseem S, Schenk J, Silva H and Kerpel-Fronius S. Linking the Declarations of Helsinki and of Taipei: Critical Challenges of Future- Oriented Research Ethics. Front. Pharmacol. 2020. 11: 579714. doi: 10.3389/fphar.2020.579714

Recently she organized an international webinar to discuss the issue of ethics of placebo-controlled trial and post-trial access during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Assoc.Professor Clinical Trials, Department of Clinical Therapeutics, School of Medicine, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Alexandra General Hospital

MD from University of Athens. Specialized in Medical Oncology. PhD in the role of oncogenes in carcinogenesis. Medical Oncologist in Alexandra Hospital, Department of Clinical Therapeutics, 80, Vassilisis Sofias Street, 11528, Athens, Greece.

Education

2002: MD, Medical School, University of Athens, Grade: Excellent

2013: PhD, Medical School, University of Athens. Thesis entitled: “The role of oncogene-induced apoptosis and senescence in cancer”. Grade: Excellent

Clinical Experience

• 11/04/2016-today: Consultant, Oncology Unit, Department of Clinical Therapeutics, Alexandra Hospital, 80 V.Sofias str, 11528, Athens
• 9/9/2014-10/4/2016: Medical Oncologist, Scientific Associate, Alexandra Hospital, Department of Clinical Therapeutics, 80, Vassilisis Sofias Street, 11528, Athens
• 8/11/2011 – 8/9/2014: Resident in Oncology, Department of Oncology, Therapeutic Clinic, “Alexandra” General Hospital
• 3/6/2011 – 7/11/2011: Resident in Oncology, Department of Oncology, 251 Hellenic Air Force General Hospital.
• 03/03/2008-20/12/2010: Resident in Internal Medicine, 2^nd Department of Internal Medicine, “Sotiria” Hospital of Chest Diseases
• 24/4/2003 – 23/7/2004: Physician at Xylokastro Health Center

Clinical Research

• 2011-today. Sub-Investigator in Phase II/III/IV clinical trials conducted in Alexandra Hospital, Department of Clinical Therapeutics, 80, Vassilisis Sofias Street, 11528, Athens

Basic Research

• 2003-2011: Member of the Molecular Carcinogenesis Group, established and directed by Prof. Vassilios Gorgoulis, Lab of Histology and Embryology, Medical School, University of Athens
• 21/12/2010 – 2/6/2011: Scientific collaborator, Histology and Embryology Laboratory, Medical School, University of Athens. Researcher in the INFLA-CARE scientific program, funded by EU (FP7 funding program)
• 01/01/2005 -31/06/2006: Researcher in the Scientific Project: “Study of the role of genotoxic agents in the survival of colon cancer cell lines, emphasizing in the E2F1-induced apoptosis”, funded by GSRT, PYTHAGORAS II, Funding Program.
• Deep knowledge of laboratory techniques (Immunohistochemistry, Immunofluorescence, PCR, R-PCR, Western blotting, Immunoprecipitation, Cell cultures, Eukaryotic cells transfection and infection, Plasmid delivery systems, Flow Cytometry)

Publications

• 43 Articles in International Medical Journals that have received more than 3300 citations (h-Index: 19)
• 20 Abstracts in International Medical Conferences
• 3 Articles in Greek Medical Journals
• 2 Chapters in International Medical Books
• 20 Abstracts in International Medical Conferences
• Invited Speaker in more than 50 Medical Congresses

Awards

• Scholar of Papadakis Foundation 1997-2002
• Award from National Scholarship Foundation 1998
• Research Scholarship from Hellenic Society of Medical Oncology (HeSMO) 2012

Member of Scientific Organizations

• Hellenic Society of Medical Oncology (HeSMO)
• European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO)
• Member of the Coordinating Committee of the Hellenic Group of Young Oncologists (HeGYO) (2015-2017)
• Member of the Hellenic Genito-urinary Cancer Group (HGUCG) since 2014 and Treasurer since 2017

Participation in Scientific committees

• Member of the scientific committee for the 23^rd National Conference of Clinical Oncology

Member of editorial boards

Editor-in-chief, Forum of Clinical Oncology, the official scientific journal of the Hellenic Society of Medical Oncology, since April 2018

PhD Candidate in Bioethics & Public Health   Policy, Cyprus International Institute for the Environmental & Public Health Faculty of Health Sciences, Cyprus University of Technology

Ms. Georgia Livieri has been specialized in Bioethics, receiving intensive training in Germany, Austria, USA (physical presence) and Australia (online). She is currently a 3^rd year PhD candidate at the Cyprus International Institute for the Environmental and Public Health, CUT. Her doctoral is based on highlighting the role of Bioethics in the Digital Health era towards governmental policies, pharmaceutical industry and computer companies. Her research is pioneer due to the international, interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary collaboration among Cyprus-Greece-Ireland, being a scholar of the Leventis Foundation. Georgia acts as a member of the Advisory Council of the Lancet Commission on Medicine and the Holocaust, Hebrew University, Israel. She is the Head of the Executive Committee of the Cyprus Bioethics Unit. As a profession, she is serving as an Ethics Manager to EU funded projects and as an Ethics Educator she gives lectures on Research Ethics to Universities and Associations. Finally, she acts as an Ethics Advisor at the Frankfurt Big Data Lab, AI Ethics, Goethe University.

Natalia Loukaiti CV

Consultant in Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, ex Director of the Critical Care Unit of Konstantopoulio Hospital ‘Agia Olga’ Athens ,Greece

Dr Nina Maguina-Vlachantoni is a consultant in Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine with a special interest in Medical Education, Clinical Quality Assessment and Bioethics.

She graduated from Pierce College (1970) and obtained her medical degree from the University of Athens in 1976. After completing her Respiratory Medicine specialty training in Athens in 1981, she went on to subspecialize in Critical Care Medicine at the Cedars Sinai Medical Center UCLA in Los Angeles. She subsequently obtained significant clinical experience as a consultant at the Center for Respiratory Failure at the Athens Chest Hospital ‘Sotiria’ until 1991 before being appointed to found and establish the Critical Care Unit of Konstantopoulio Hospital ‘Agia Olga’ which she continued to manage until her retirement in 2015.  Her PhD focused on ICU patient mortality prediction based on severity scores on admission.

As head of the Critical Care Unit, Dr Maguina-Vlachantoni organized and coordinated specialty training for medical trainees as well as nursing staff with an emphasis on Rescuscitation training as a certified BLS/AED, ALS and ACLS instructor. Her main focus has been the standardization of critical care procedures and improvement of patient safety which led to a successful ISO accreditation of her ICU in 2008, the first of its kind in Greece.

Dr. Maguina-Vlachantoni was appointed in 1996 as the Editor-in-Chief of PNEUMON, the official Hellenic Society of Respiratory Medicine journal and held this position until 2006. During the course of her career Dr Maguina-Vlachantoni developed a keen interest in the connection between ethics and health that inform and affect the decision-making process within the Critical Care multidisciplinary team. She now focuses on teaching Quality and Performance improvement of Critical Care, Patient Safety and Bioethics in the clinical as well as in the academic post-graduate setting (University of Crete).

Professor, Department of Health Policy and Management, and Vice President of Center for Strategic Research Initiative, Nippon Medical School, IFAPP WG Ethics Lead

Kotone Matsuyama is currently a Professor, Department of Health Policy and Management, and Vice President of Center for Strategic Research Initiative, Nippon Medical School.

She graduated from Kyoto University Faculty of Pharmaceutical Science and obtained a license as Pharmacist. She started her R&D carrier as a data manager in 2003. She has been worked as a project manager since 2005. She spent 12 years at Translational Research Informatics Center, Foundation for Biomedical Research and Innovation, Kobe, and 2.5 years as a Lecturer at Center for Quality Assurance in Research and Development, Kyoto Prefectural University of Medicine.

BSc in Library Science &Information Systems, Scientific Collaborator of the Athena Research Center

Elli is currently finishing her M.Sc. in Public Policy and Public Management at the Athens University of Economics and Business with a thesis exploring the legal, ethical and logistical foundations of AI in public policy reforms and the perceptions of the Greek research community. She also has a B.Sc. in Library Science and Information Systems from the International Hellenic University and is certified in Research Data Management and in services management of the FiTSM standard.

Elli has held positions in international academic and research environments, such as the Library of the University of Bath, UK and the Information Service of CERN, CH. Since 2017, she works for ATHENA Research & Innovation Center in Greece, where she coordinates the activities of the OpenAIRE Greek NOAD and manages the Argos Data Management Planning service. In the Greek research area, Elli has helped with preparatory work and coordination of 13 major Research Technology and Development (RTD) organisations who have come together under a shared vision and produced their collective proposal for a National Open Science Plan in Greece. Parts of this proposal have been transposed to the national digital strategy 2020-2025 of the Ministry of Digital Governance.

Moreover, Elli is sharing her passion for Open Science and Research Data Management in several fora, such as the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), The Carpentries and the Research Data Alliance (RDA).

In RDA, she is the co-chair of the Active Data Management Plans Interest Group, the Early Career Engagement Interest Group (IG) and the Engaging Researchers with Data Management IG where she has contributed to the output “Engaging Researchers with Data Management: The Cookbook”.

More about Elli’s scientific contributions can be found in her ORCID account 0000-0002-0893-8509. Blogposts highlighting her contribution in OpenAIRE can be browsed HERE.

Katerina Skouteli graduated from Athens School of Law (summa cum laude) in 2014 and thereafter continued her postgraduate studies in Civil Law (summa cum laude), while practicing law at the litigation department of one of the biggest law firms in Athens. In 2016, she joined the Athens Bar Association.

During the academic year 2016-2017, she attended the Postgraduate Law Program (LL.M.) at New York University (NYU) School of Law, USA. From 2017 until the end of 2020 she worked in the city of Brussels, in two top tier US law firms (Mayer Brown and Jones Day). In both firms she was part of the “Health Care & Life Sciences” department and advised clients at an EU-level regarding a variety of issues focusing on biotechnology, medicinal products, medical devices, food and cosmetics, as well as general EU product and industries regulation, including digital health and AI.

In 2021, she completed her Ph.D. thesis on: “Clinical Trials: Contracts, Liability and other Civil Law matters under Greek and EU law”. The thesis was published as a legal book.

She is currently Head of the legal department of a pharmaceutical company of Israeli interests. She is, also, a member of the Greek Committee of Public Health Experts (EEDY), as well as the Vice-President of the Greek Association of Medical Law and Bioethics. Furthermore, she has taught at the University of Athens and the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki on clinical trials and pharmaceutical law. She has, also, published two books on medicinal product liability and informed consent in the context of clinical trials.

Investigator – Professor Level, Clinical, Experimental Surgery Translational Research Lab Head, Biomedical Research Foundation of the Academy of Athens

Dr. Constantin Tamvakopoulos received his B.A. in Chemistry from the University of Chicago in 1986. He continued his studies in the United States and received a Ph.D. in Chemistry/Biochemistry from Brown University in 1992. Following his graduate studies, he joined the department of Pharmacokinetics and Drug Metabolism at Purdue Pharma LP (a private pharmaceutical company specializing in drug delivery forms) as a Senior Scientist and then as a Principal Scientist in the same department until 1997. From 1997 until 2004 he held positions at Merck Research Laboratories as a Senior Research Chemist and a Research Fellow in the department of Basic Chemistry. In 2004 he accepted a tenure track position at the Department of Pharmacology, Biomedical Research Foundation of the Academy of Athens and he currently holds the position of Investigator – Professor level in the samedivision.

Dr. Tamvakopoulos’ main focus of research revolves around the development of targeted therapeutics, discovery of translational biomarkers and application of novel mass spectrometric techniques with significance in biomedical research. By placing emphasis on pharmacokinetic and drug metabolism questions, pharmacologic action can be better understood with beneficial consequences to the design of future therapies. He is particularly interested in anti-cancer cytotoxic targeted therapeutics, as well as anti-angiogenesis therapeutic molecules.

Some of his main scientific contributions as a graduate student at Brown included the development of novel mass spectrometric approaches for the quantification of the intermediates of fatty acid metabolism. The methodology was applied towards the establishment of Acyl-CoA profiles in patient fibroblasts with inherited metabolic diseases, in collaborative studies with the Children’s Hospital in the University of Pennsylvania.

At Merck Research Laboratories, Dr. Tamvakopoulos collaborated with synthetic chemists, biologists, pharmacologists in many new drug discovery programs in the therapeutic areas of metabolic disorders (obesity, diabetes), inflammation (arthritis) and atherosclerosis and actively participated towards the advancement of new leads in the various drug discovery programs. Some of those leads have now advanced to phases of clinical development by Merck or have received approval as treatments (e.g. JanuviaTD).

Dr Tamvakopoulos currently finds himself in a stimulating research environment at BRFAA which generates new opportunities for collaborations in projects that could lead to compounds with potential as anti-cancer drugs or chemopreventive agents, with particular emphasis on targeted therapies. He has over 60 publications in peer-reviewed journals, has served as a member of the scientific advisory board of the national regulatory agency for new drug approvals (EOF), as a peer reviewer on the Danish Research Council, and has been a PI or Co-PI in several grants related to his research interests (listed below).  Finally he is a co-inventor of a recently filled patent on the application of an anti-Myc compound for pancreatic cancer.

Professor of Modern & Contemporary Philosophy and Bioethics, Director of Joint Graduate Programme “Bioethics” and Director of the Centre for Bioethics of the University of Crete.

She has acted twice as Head of the Department of Philosophy and Social Studies, as Head of the Division of Philosophy of the same Department, and Director of Studies of Joint Graduate Programme “Philosophy: Science, Values & Society”. She was the founding Director of the Centre for Philosophical Research and Translation of the University of Crete.

She holds a First Class Honours Degree in Philosophy from the Department of Philosophy, University of Athens, followed by M.A. in Moral and Social Philosophy from the University of Exeter and Ph.D. in Moral Philosophy from the same University. She has held a Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals Award (UK), Exeter University Scholarship (UK), and A.K. Mellon Foundation Fellowship (USA).

Before coming to Crete, she taught at the University of Ioannina, Greece, and University of Exeter, UK. She has held visiting posts/fellowships at the Universities of Leeds, Pittsburgh (Center for Philosophy of Science), Oxford (St. John’s College), Texas at Austin, London School of Economics and Political Sciences (Centre for Philosophy of the Natural and Social Sciences), University of London (Institute of Philosophy Fellowship), Stanford University.

She has published in moral and social philosophy, bioethics, epistemology, philosophy of language and philosophy of mind. Her research interests focus on the epistemology of value-concepts, methodological and epistemological issues in bioethics, Kant’s moral philosophy, ethics of science, normativity and rule-following, Wittgenstein, naturalism in epistemology and meta-ethics, moral constructivism and realism. Her publications also include comparative studies in “analytic’ and “continental” philosophy. She is the author of Language and Critique. Wittgenstein on Meaning, Knowledge and Values, Liberal Books (in Greek); co-editor of Philosophy and the Many Faces of Science, Rowman and Littlefield Publishers; co-editor of Themes in Bioethics, Crete University Press (in Greek).

Her research has been supported by funded National and European projects.

She is a member of the Editorial Board of the academic journals: International Studies in the Philosophy of Science (Routledge), Deucalion: Biannual Journal for Philosophical Research and Critique, and Bioethica.

She has organized numerous international conferences in philosophy and bioethics, and has served, upon invitation, on a number of international conference organizing and programme committees.

She has served on an extensive number of committees, panels and bodies related to bioethics, research ethics and the ethics of science. Among them, she was member of the National Committee for Deontology for Clinical Trials of the Greek Ministry of Health from 2010-2020, and member of the European Commission’s international

Expert Group to advise on specific ethical issues raised by driverless mobility, which issued the «Independent Expert Report on the Ethics of Connected and Automated Vehicles, 2020» (https://europa.eu/!VV67my). She was also alternate member of the Sectorial Scientific Council of Arts and Humanities of the National Council for Research and Innovation (N.C.R.I.) of the Greek Ministry of Education during 2018- 2019, and founding Chair of the Research Ethics Committee (REC) of the University of Crete (2018- 2021).

She currently sits on the National Commission for Bioethics & Technoethics (2021- ). She heads the REC of the Hellenic Pasteur Institute; is vice-chair of REC of the National Centre for Social Research (EKKE); member of the Scientific Committee of Greek Patients Association; member of the Committee on Bioethics and the Ethics of the Sciences, and the Committee on Human Rights, of Fédération Internationale des Sociétés de Philosophie.

She has participated in the legislative committee which drafted the Legal Act for the establishment of Research Ethics Committees in Greek Academic Institutions and Research Centers (L.4521/2018).

Member of the Bioethics Committee
Biomedical Research Foundation of the Academy of Athens

Dr. Olga Tzortzatou – Nanopoulou, is a practicing lawyer appointed before the Supreme Court in the fields of industrial property and data protection. She practices law since 2007, whereas from 2008 she has been working as an in-house legal consultant for the “Biomedical Research Foundation of the Academy of Athens” (BRFAA). She is a visiting lecturer in the Medical Schools of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens and at the Democritus University of Thrace and her current research focuses on AI, big data and innovation. Within BRFAA she also acts as a member of the Bioethics Committee, the Head of the Industrial Property Committee and as a Principal Investigator for EU and nationally funded projects.  For the past six years, she serves as external ethics expert for the European Commission.

Senior Researcher, Legal Advisor HNCBT, BioMedLex, EGE Member (European Commission)

Takis Vidalis received his Ph.D. from the Law School of the University of Athens.

In 2001 he was elected a senior scientist and legal advisor of the Hellenic National Bioethics Commission.

He is the author (or co-author) of 7 books and more than 50 academic papers mostly on Bioethics, and Biolaw. He participated with original papers in more than 100 international and national conferences and workshops, and numerous research projects.

Vidalis has extensive educational experience for more than 25 years.

Currently he teaches “Biolaw and Bioethics” at the International Hellenic University, the University of Thrace (School of Medicine), and the Open University of Cyprus, “Artificial Intelligence: Ethics and Law”, at the Law School of the Univ. of Athens “Medical Ethics and Bioethics” at the University of Athens (distance learning /vocational education program).

Since 2005, he participated in ethical reviews of biomedical and biotechnology research projects, under the EU research activities. As an international expert, he contributed also, to the UNESCO’s Global Ethics Observatory (GEObs).

Vidalis is the president of the Research Ethics Committee of the leading research Institute in Greece “Democritus”, and a former member of the National Ethics Committee for Clinical Trials.