Head of the Department
MICHAEL I KOUKOURAKIS, MD
PROFESSOR OF MEDICINE
Graduated the University of Athens, Greece, in 1986. From 1986 to 1991 he specialised in Radiotherapy and Oncology at the Hellenic Cancer Institute, Saint Savvas Hospital, Athens and in Clinical Oncology at the University of Paris VII, France. He obtained his PhD diploma at the University of Crete. He followed post-doctoral studies at the University of Oxford, ICRF Medical Oncology Unit, where he worked in early phase clinical studies on novel agents and in translational research projects related to angiogenesis and drug resistance. From 1995 to 1999, he has worked as a consultant in the Department of Radiotherapy and Oncology at the University of Hospital of Heraklion, where he focused on the combinations of chemotherapy with radiation and to the clinical development of new cytoprotective regimens with amifostine. Since 2000, he works as Professor and Head of the Department of Radiotherapy/Oncology at the Democritus University of Thrace, in Alexandroupolis, where he continuous his research projects in altered radiatioin fractionation, radiochemotherapy and targeted agent combinations as well as cytoprotection. A Radiobiology and Radiopathology Unit created and running under his guidance focuses research on the radiation interactions with the autophagic machinery, the lysosomal and the proteasome function, in normal tissues and cancer cells, aiming to discover novel radioprotection and tumor radiosensitzation methods. As chairman of the ‘Tumour and Angiogenesis Research Group’ organises and supervises a large number of collaborative clinicopathological studies on the pathogenetic, prognostic and predictive role of angiogenesis, hypoxia and autophagy related proteins in the field of chemo-radiotherapy. He has authored or co-authored more than 350 articles in peer reviewed journals, with an H-factor higher than 60.