Website: www.elgo.gr and www.ipgrb.gr
ELGO-Dimitra is leading WP3 that focuses on plant environmental adaptation to wastewater irrigation and abiotic stress resilience. Particularly, ELGO-Dimitra leads three of the four tasks of this WP that deal with the adoption of renewable energy sources to minimize carbon footprint, the employment of -omics and in-depth physiology tools for the exploration of plants responses to wastewater irrigation and the implementation of sustainable practices such as vegetable grafting that could aid plants to adapt better to this irrigation. ELGO-Dimitra actively participates in several WPs in close collaboration with other partners and is the host of one of project’s pilot sites regarding a sustainable greenhouse installation. ELGO-Dimitra was established in 2011 following the merge of 4 organizations which are involved in agricultural sector activities and it functions as a legal entity of the public sector supervised and financed by the Greek Ministry of Rural Development & Food. Its objectives are to develop and support actions that modernize and advance the country’s agricultural sector, to improve production processes, to enhance competitiveness, to certify the quality of agricultural products and food, to establish good agricultural practices and necessary controls and finally, to educate and train Greek farmers. ELGO-Dimitra is participating in the SAFE project via the Institute of Plant Breeding and Genetic Resources, based in Thermi, Thessaloniki, Greece. The Institute of Plant Breeding and Genetic Resources is conducting applied plant research with the view to produce and transfer knowledge to agricultural production in response to modern agricultural problems. The institute has a capacity of 76 employees including 30 researchers of all levels specializing on diverse scientific disciplines.
Key personnel involved
Afroditi Tsampalla
Dr Afroditi Tsampalla is a researcher at the Institute of Plant Breeding and Genetic Resources, ELGO-Dimitra. She has obtained her PhD degree in plant genetics and breeding from the School of Agriculture, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece. She has worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute of Applied Biosciences of C.E.R.T.H. (Thessaloniki, Greece) and as a Marie Sklodowska-Curie Individual Fellow at the University of East Anglia (Norwich, UK). Since December 2017, she is a researcher working in the field of plant breeding and genomics. She has published 22 publications in peer-reviewed scientific journals (Google Scholar h-index 18). She is the scientific responsible and PI of the Greek “SAFE” team.
Georgios Ntinas
Dr Georgios Ntinas is a researcher at the Institute of Plant Breeding and Genetic Resources, ELGO-Dimitra, since 2017. He holds a PhD degree from Aristotle University Thessaloniki (AUTh), School of Agriculture, Dept. of Hydraulics, Soil Science and Agricultural Engineering, Greece. He has worked as a postdoc researcher at the University of Aarhus (Denmark), at National Institute for Agricultural Research (France), at AUTh and at Technical University of Munich (Germany). He has published 23 papers in international scientific journals and he has presented his work in many scientific conferences, seminars, and workshops (Google Scholar h-index 11). He has participated as a coordinator, WP leader and research associate in 5 European and 11 national programs, while he is a member of scientific associations, societies, and unions.
Ilektra Sperdouli
Dr Ilektra Sperdouli obtained her BSc degree, as well as her PhD degree from the School of Biology of Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece. Her PhD work concentrated in the study of photosynthetic and metabolic responses of the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana under drought stress. So far, she has published 44 articles in international peer-reviewed journals (Google Scholar h-index 25) and has presented her work in international and national conferences. Since June 2018, she is a researcher in Plant Biochemistry, at the Institute of Plant Breeding and Genetic Resources, ELGO-Dimitra.
Ioannis Ganopoulos
Dr Ioannis Ganopoulos is a researcher of the Institute of Plant Breeding and Genetic Resources, ELGO Dimitra and has a scientific background on plant biotechnology, on genetics and genomics. He has published more than 150 reviewed articles in SCI journals (Google Scholar h-index 35).
Eleni Maloupa
Dr. Eleni Maloupa is the director of the Institute of Plant Breeding and Genetic Resources, ELGO-Dimitra, Head of the Laboratory for the Conservation and Evaluation of Native and Floricultural Species. Her research focuses on protection, conservation, propagation, cultivation and utilization of native Greek and Balkan plant species.
Evangelos Tziritis
Dr Evangelos Tziritis is a researcher at the Soil and Water Resources Institute, ELGO-Dimitra. His research domain is focused on environmental hydrogeochemistry and relevant water resources aspects. He has significant experience in methodological approaches for geo-environmental analysis in catchment scale level. He has published more than 50 scientific papers.
Ioanna Chatzigeorgiou
Ioanna Chatzigeorgiou is an agronomist and PhD researcher in the field of Horticulture, focused on physiology and quality of vegetables cultivated in indoor growing systems, utilizing renewable energy resources. She is currently collaborating with the Sustainable Agricultural Structures & Renewable Energy Resources Lab (SASRER Lab) in ELGO – DIMITRA, Thessaloniki Greece.
Georgios Kelesidis
Georgios Kelesidis is an agronomist (MSci) and PhD scientist at the Institute of Plant Breeding and Genetic Resources, ELGO-Dimitra. He’s keenly interested in plant genomics and in seeking through deep learning to comprehend computationally the whys of plants’ responses. He is focused on new insights at breeding for sustainability.