Irene Margiolaki is currently employed as a Professor in the field of "Biochemistry: Structure and Function of Proteins" at the Department of Biology of the University of Patras (UPAT, Patras, Greece). She graduated in Physics in 1999 (University of Crete, Greece). Her D.Phil. thesis on “Structural, Magnetic and Dynamic properties of fullerene- based materials” was completed in 2004 at the Department of Physics, Chemistry and Environmental Sciences, of the University of Sussex, UK. During the period, 2003-2010, she has been employed as an instrument scientis, by the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF), in Grenoble, France. An important part of her research at the ID22 High resolution powder diffraction beamline of the ESRF and ongoing research activities is the development of innovative powder diffraction methods for the structural characterisation of biological macromolecules, when data-quality single crystals for X-ray crystallography cannot be obtained. In addition, she focuses on the combination of XRPD with synchrotron serial crystallography for the elucidation of peptide and protein structures associated with pharmaceutical importance from microcrystals. Since 2010, she leads her 15 member research team at UPAT. In 2013 she inaugurated an X-ray crystallography laboratory at the Department of Biology equipped with 2 modern diffractometers for single crystal and powder diffraction measurements. In 2015, she created a station for protein expression, purification and crystallisation at the same department. Her work to date has been recognised by internationally distinguished organisations as Unesco - L'Oreal, ESRF, EPDIC, BCA:
2003 “Blue John Crystal” award from the biological structures group of the British Crystallographic Association (BCA News cover)
2006 European Powder Diffraction Conference (EPDIC 10) young scientist award - (ESRF Press).
2009 Elected member of the European Powder Diffraction Committee (EPDIC).
2010 UNESCO- L'OREAL Co-sponsored International fellowship for Young Women in Life Sciences. The research related to this award is conducted at three established European institutes (AFMB- Marseille, UPAT- Greece, ESRF- France) and focuses on the structure solution of proteins related to viruses which are expected to cause epidemias in the South Balkan region.
2012 Academic and Research Excellence in Higher Education: Promotion and Support, Hellenic Ministry of Education, Research and Religious affairs.
2012-2018 Elected member of the Hellenic Crystallographic Association Committee (HECRA).
2015 Presentation of research results on the cover and article (page 18) of the ESRF newsletter.
2015 Grant funded by the General Secretariat of Research and Technology (GSRT, Hellenic Republic) with 180.000 Euros, “ARISTEIA II” program, project code 4659, «Biophysics-DRUG: Diffraction and NMR experimental platform for drug screening».
2016 Presentation of research results in PANalytical X'Press article 2/2016.
2016-2021 Appointed member of the Board of Directors: Patras Science Park (PSP).
2019 Interview for the Press (Patris, in Greek language).
2019 Invited Book Chapter for the International Tables of Crystallography- Volume H: Powder Diffraction, chapter 7.1, 718-736, "Macromolecular Powder Diffraction”, (available online), I. Margiolaki
2020 Appointed, by the International Union of Crystallography (IUCr) executive committee, Co-editor of Acta Crystallographica section A: Foundations and Advances.
2021 Press release of the Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI- Switzerland) on our recent publication and cover of the May 2021 issue of Acta Cryst. A (International Union of Crystallography journals).
2022 15 min. Interview by Deepli GmbH (available online).
2022 Interview for the ESRFNews, December 2022.