Dr Ilias Bouzalas works as Researcher in the Veterinary Research Institute of Hellenic Agricultural Organization-DEMETRE. He was graduated from the Veterinary Medicine School of Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in 2003. His PhD thesis was directed towards investigating the interaction between different prion strains and the genetic background of the host. Moreover, as a PhD student in the Laboratory of Microbiology and Infectious Diseases in Veterinary Medicine School of Aristotle University of Thessaloniki he had the opportunity to get involved in the routine diagnosis and the research activities of different viral and bacterial diseases and that made him familiar with several diagnostic techniques (ELISA, PCR, Western Blot, ICH, bacterial cultures, cell cultures). In addition, leading research programs (Main researcher) or supporting them (Research assistant), he gained experience in scientific documentation and project management and his successful contribution is reflected the publication list.  

Directly after his PhD he started to work as a Research Fellow in the Division of Neurological Sciences at the University of Bern (NeuroCentre). His project aimed to develop and establish organotypic brain slice cultures as model for the investigation of the pathogenicity of different scrapie strains. The funding of this position was granted after competitive evaluation of his research proposal from the Schweizerische Eidgenossenschaft and the entire project was conducted in a BL-3 level Lab. This scholarship ended in June 2013 and then he was involved in the group of Prof Torsten Seuberlich investigating unresolved encephalitis cases in cattle by using metagenomics (Next Generation Sequencing and Bioinformatics). His main scientific interests are related to Microbiology and mainly to Viral Infectious Diseases. He has more than 20 articles in peer-reviewed scientific journals (total IF 2017 ≈ 45, h-index=12) and many publications in Congresses.