Dr. Christos Bazakos obtained his Bachelor degree on Agriculture, in 2005, from the School of Agriculture of Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece. In the frame of his Master of Science (MSc) studies, Christos’ focused on enriching his knowledge on plant genetics and plant molecular biology and he obtained his MSc degree, in 2007, from the department of Horticultural Genetics and Biotechnology of Mediterranean Agronomic Institute at Chania (M.A.I.Ch), Greece.

Christos Bazakos carried out his PhD thesis at M.A.I.Ch under the supervision of Dr. Panagiotis Kalaitzis and he obtained his PhD degree from the School of Agriculture (Dept. of Plant Sciences) of Aristotle University Thessaloniki (AUTh), Greece (2012). His PhD dissertation is entitled “High-throughput gene expression study on the molecular response of olive tree (Olea europaea) under NaCl stress”. Specifically, Christos used two comparative transcriptomic approaches (microarray and high-throughput RNA sequencing) as the tools to unravel gene regulatory networks underlying salinity response in olive trees by simulating as much as possible olive growing conditions in the field.

After the end of his doctoral studies, Christos Bazakos worked as a postdoctoral researcher to the lab of Dr. Olivier Loudet (Institut Jean-Pierre Bourgin, INRA – Versailles, France) from 2012 to 2016. Christos’ project was to apply genome-wide quantitative molecular genetics to both, a very integrative and classical quantitative trait (growth in interaction with the environment) and a molecular trait a priori more directly linked to the source of variation (gene expression under cis-regulation) in both cases studied in interaction with mild drought stress in the model-plant Arabidopsis thaliana.

In 2016, Christos Bazakos moved to Germany to work as a post-doctoral researcher on plant developmental genetics at Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research in Cologne in the group of Prof. Dr. Miltos Tsiantis., as member of the Cluster of Excellence on Plant Sciences (CEPLAS). His research work uses molecular biology, single-cell expression, genome editing approaches, biological imaging methodologies and genome wide association studies to understand the developmental nature and origin for asexual reproduction in the genus of Cardamine and to study the genetic basis for this phenomenon.

Since July 2018, Christos is an independent researcher in Tree Breeding and Genomics, at the Institute of Plant Breeding and Genetic Resources, HAO (Thessaloniki, Greece) and since September 2021 is a guest scientist in Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research in Cologne in the group of Prof. Dr. Miltos Tsiantis.

• Plant Genomics, Transcriptomics, Single-Cell Expression
• Quantitative genetics
• High-throughput phenotyping platforms
• Marker-Assisted-Selection (MAS) and Genome-Wide-Association-Studies (GWAS)
• Genetic engineering and Genome editing (CRISPR-Cas9)
• DNA fingerprinting

• «Developing omics-driven tools for molecular breeding of cold-storage tolerant peach cultivars- DeCOLD_Peach», within the framework of the Call "Funding of Basic Research (Horizontal Support of all Sciences)," National Recovery and Resilience Plan ("Greece 2.0") of the Hellenic Foundation for Research and Innovation (H.F.R.I.).

Bazakos C., Michailidis M. et al., (2024). Genetic mosaic of the Mediterranean fig: comprehensive genomic insights from a gene bank collection. Physiologia Plantarum 176(4):e14482. doi: 10.1111/ppl.14482.

Srivastava R.*, Bazakos C.* et al., (2023) Genealogical analyses of three cultivated and one wild specimen of Vitis vinifera from Greece. Genome Biology and Evolution, doi: 10.1093/gbe/evad226

Bazakos C., Alexiou K.G. et al., (2023) Whole genome scanning of a Mediterranean basin hotspot collection provide new insights into olive tree biodiversity and biology. Plant Journal, doi: 10.1111/tpj.16270

Skodra C., Michailidis M., … Bazakos C., Molassiotis A. (2022) Disclosing the molecular basis of salinity priming in olive trees using proteogenomic model discovery. Plant Physiology, 191(3):1913-1933.

Xanthopoulou A., Moysiadis T., Bazakos C., et al. (2021). The perennial fruit tree proteogenomics atlas: a spatial map of the sweet cherry proteome and transcriptome. Plant Journal, DOI: 10.1111/tpj.15612.

Xanthopoulou A., Manioudaki M., Bazakos C., et al. (2020). Whole genome re-sequencing of sweet cherry (Prunus avium L.) yields insights into genomic diversity of a fruit species. Horticulture Research, 7:1-14.

Bazakos C., Hanemian M., Trontin C., Jimenez-Gomez J., Loudet O. (2017). New Strategies and Tools in Quantitative Genetics. How to go from genotype to phenotype. Annual Review of Plant Biology, 68:15.1-15.21.