Cercle Gutenberg

Georges Dedousis

George Dedoussis is a Professor of Human Biology at the Department of Dietetics and Nutrition of Harokopio University in Athens. He received his BSc in Biology from the University of Patras, his master's degree from the University of Technology «Compiegne» in France, and his PhD from the
Medical School of Athens. He worked as a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Center of Thalassemia and as a researcher, on a Fulbright scholarship, at the Medical Faculty of 'Harvard University' (Boston, USA). He has been a visiting professor for many years at the School of Pharmacy at the University of Nancy, France. As a Principal Investigator, he has coordinated a large number of research projects mainly in the field of Human Molecular Genetics of cardiometabolic phenotypes and their interaction with dietary intake. He has supervised 9 PhD students that have defended, while 5 others whose dissertations are in progress. He has published more than 300 papers in journals with high impact factor and his research work has been recognized by others (number of citations > 45000). He is teaching Biology of the Cell and Molecular Genetics. He was recently elected as a member and Vice-President of the Greek National Research Council. In 2019, he was nominated among the most cited scientists during the last decade. He has coordinated many national and European grants in the field of genomics of obesity, myocardial infraction and Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease (NAFLD). He is also testing the potential beneficial impact of natural compounds on the clinical outcome of patients diagnosed with NAFLD, where he is the coordinator of a Marie Curie RISE European grant (www.MAST4HEALTH.eu). His research group consists of Dietitians-Nutritionists, Biologists and Bioinformaticiens.


The Gutenberg Chair was dedicated to Professor Dedoussis in 2018, on the project entitled:
“Dietary patterns contributing from health to adiposity and inflammatory biomarkers in Greek and
French adolescents” started on Mars 2019 in order to investigate the role of dietary patterns as
modifiers on the genetic make-up of both populations. The purpose of this study is to unravel the
dietary patterns of the two adolescent populations, to calculate the Ideal Cardiovascular Health Index (ICHI) and to investigate associations with calculated adiposity and inflammatory Genetic Risk Scores. So far, dietary and genetic analyses from the project have successfully resulted in the acceptance of three abstracts for presentation in European and international conferences, including the following:

  • “The rs13107325 polymorphism of the SLC39A8 gene and body mass index in two teenage,
    European populations”, presented as an e-Poster at the European Human Genetics Virtual
    Conference 2020, which took place from June 6th to June 9th 2020;
  • “A dietary pattern associated with lower total cholesterol in two teenage European
    populations”, accepted for a poster presentation at the online ECOICO 2020- European and
    International Congress on Obesity, scheduled to take place from September 1st to September 4th 2020, and
  • “Dietary patterns associated with lipid metabolism markers in French teenagers”, accepted
    for a poster tour presentation at the ESPEN 2020 Virtual Congress on Clinical Nutrition &
    Metabolism, scheduled to take place from September 19th to September 21st 2020.
    Current analyses on the project are focusing on the role of genetic background on obesity and inflammation-related traits in the two adolescent populations, aiming at the creation of correspondent genetic risk scores, in an effort to practically assess certain risk genetic variants’ effect. Despite the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, our research team has been adapting and engaging in continuous and dedicated work, as to achieve results of the best quality possible.