Athanasios oikonomou

Athanasios completed an MSc in Immunology and Inflammation at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark, conducting his master’s thesis at AstraZeneca in Gothenburg, Sweden. He then joined the "Age-related Changes in Hematopoiesis" (ARCH) Marie-Sklodowska Curie Actions doctoral network, bringing him to Monza, Italy, for a PhD in Molecular and Translational Medicine (DIMET) at the University of Milan-Bicocca and Fondazione Tettamanti. His doctoral research centered on ex-vivo high-throughput drug screening on pediatric leukemia samples to identify precision medicine therapies for high-risk subgroups. Passionate about multidisciplinary work and enthusiastic to expand beyond his comfort zone, he enjoys to integrate both experimental and computational approaches in his works across Immunology, Hemato-oncology and Precision Medicine.  

Since November 2023, Athanasios has been a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Iorio group at Human Technopole, working on projects that combine both wet and dry lab tasks, while also contributing to supervision of junior members, communication with external collaborators, laboratory management and administrative support. His current projects involve a CRISPR-enhanced assessment of mutational Variants of Unknown Significance (VUS) and the study of the role of Cancer Associated Fibroblasts (CAFs) in breast cancer drug resistance.