Diploma in Chemistry and Specialization Diploma in Biochemistry, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Grecce. On September 2008 she joined the Structural Biology and Chemistry group of the Institute of Biology, Medicinal Chemistry and Biotechnology,
Division of Organic & Medicinal Chemistry (OMC) where she worked on the expression, purification and crystallization of adenylate kinase 6 (AK6) for her Specialization Diploma Thesis. Since September 2010, she is working on the expression, purification and crystallization of mosquito odorant binding proteins OBP1 and OBP4 for her PhD Thesis. Before that (2008) she was a member of the Laboratory of Organic Chemistry (Dr. George Kokotos group) where she worked on the enzymatic removal of carboxyl protecting groups for her Diploma Thesis.
Main fields of specialization: molecular biology techniques, protein expression and
purification, kinetic analysis methods, crystallization and X-ray crystallography, Small Angle X-Ray Scattering, Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy.
She is a registered user Registered user of the synchrotron radiation sources: SRS (Daresbury, UK), Max-Lab (Lund, Sweden), EMBL (Hamburg, Germany), ELETTRA (Trieste, Italy). She is a member of the Association of Greek Chemists, the Hellenic Society of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and the Hellenic Crystallographic Society.
Scientific publications
C.E. Drakou, A. Malekkou, J.M. Hayes, C.W. Lederer, D.D. Leonidas, N.G. Oikonomakos, A.I. Lamond, N. Santama, S.E. Zographos. hCINAP is an atypical mammalian nuclear adenylate kinase with an ATPase motif: Structural and functional studies. Proteins,Accepted 28 August 2011.
K.E. Tsitsanou, T. Thireou, C.E. Drakou, K. Koussis, M.V. Keramioti, D.D. Leonidas, E. Eliopoulos, K. Iatrou, S.E. Zographos (2011). Anopheles gambiae odorant binding protein crystal complex with the synthetic repellent DEET: implications for structure-based design of novel mosquito repellents. Cell. Mol. Life Sci.,Epub 14 June; doi: 10.1007/s00018-011-0745-z
V.G. Tsirkone, E. Tsoukala, C. Lamprakis, S. Manta, J.M. Hayes, V.T. Skamnaki, C. Drakou, S.E. Zographos, D. Komiotis, D.D. Leonidas (2010). 1-(3-Deoxy-3-fluoro-b-D-glucopyranosyl) pyrimidine derivatives as inhibitors of glycogen phosphorylase b: Kinetic, crystallographic and modelling studies. Bioorg. Med. Chem., 18(10), 3413-3425.
E. Barbayianni, C.G. Kokotos, S. Bartsch, C. Drakou, U.T. Bornscheuer, G. Kokotos (2009). Bacillus subtilis Esterase (BS2) and its Double Mutant Have Different Selectivity in the Removal of Carboxyl Protecting Groups. Adv. Synth. Catal., 359,2325-2332.
V.G. Tsirkone, K. Dossi, C. Drakou, S.E. Zographos, M. Kontou & D.D. Leonidas (2009). Inhibitor design for ribonuclease A: the binding of two 5'-phosphate uridine analogues. Acta Crystallographica Section F-Structural Biology and Crystallization Communications,65, 671-677.
