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Dr. Anastasios (Tasos) Tsaousis will be joining the School on the 1st of July 2013.
As an undergraduate student Anastasios studied Biology at University of Crete, Greece (1999-2003). There, he had the opportunity to complete his final year project on “studying mtDNA recombination in the mussel Mytilus galloprovincialis”. On completion of his undergraduate studies he started working at the Cyprus Institute of Neurology and Genetics as a Research Technician where he was involved in different projects in the field of Human Genetics. In parallel, he was also working on a project in collaboration with different laboratories, in an attempt to discover possible recombination in mtDNA from sequences already published.
During his PhD studies (2004-2007), he sought to understand the purpose and diversity of mitochondria in microbial eukaryotes. For this reason, he joined the group of Prof. T. Martin Embley and Dr. Robert Hirt at the Newcastle University. There, he studied the evolution and function of the mitochondrion-related organelles of microsporidia. His studies presented the first experimental evidence for the existence of a remnant mitochondrion (mitosome) in the microsporidian Encephalitozoon cuniculi. His research also demonstrated the first experimental evidence for the localization and function of a non-mitochondrial ATP transporter in the microsporidian mitosome, the presence of which potentially solves the conundrum of how the mitosome acquires its energy. A second set of data from his PhD studies demonstrated that a functional role of the microsporidian mitosome is an essential eukaryotic pathway- iron/suphur (Fe/S) cluster biosyntehsis – believed to be the reason for the existence of this organelle.
As a postdoctoral researcher Anastasios moved to Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia (2008-2011), where he joined Prof. Andrew J. Roger’s group. There he was involved in several investigations on the characterization of mitochondrial pathways in anaerobic protists and how lateral gene transfer (LGT) affects their adaptation to their unique lifestyles. In 2012 he moved the Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic to join Prof. Jan Tachezy’s group (as part of his Marie Curie fellowship), where he initiated several studies on the biochemistry and protein composition of mitochondria in anaerobic microbial eukaryotes.
Tasos is a member of the Microbial Pathogenesis Group.