Dr. Sgourakis is a recognized expert in Major Histocompatibility Complex (MHC)-I structure, function and mechanism. He is the inventor of a powerful high-throughput platform used to identify and analyze antigen repertoires relevant in immuno-oncology and immunotherapy.

His team investigate the dynamic properties of pleiotropic cytokines, with the aim to design conformation-selective protein therapeutics to treat autoimmunity and cancer, overcoming the deficiencies of current drugs and antibody-based therapies. They integrate cutting-edge structural biology tools from Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy with computational protein structure modeling and design, and functional immunoassays.

Dr. Sgourakis is an associate professor in the Center for Computational & Genomic Medicine at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, and the Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics at the University of Pennsylvania.

Prior to this, he was an assistant professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of California since 2015, where he led studies of immune system proteins implicated in infectious diseases and cancer.

From 2013 to 2015, he was Intramural Research Fellow at the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, focusing on Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) spectroscopy studies of virus/host protein interaction networks involved in immune evasion, and the establishment of latency. During his postdoctoral work at the University of Washington, he developed computational methods for modelling the structures of protein complexes by integrating NMR with cryoelectron microscopy data.

Dr. Sgourakis earned his PhD from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 2009, and his Master’s degree in Bioinformatics from the National University of Athens. As an undergraduate student, he developed machine learning algorithms for predicting properties of G-protein coupled receptors currently used in pharmacology and drug discovery.

PhD, Biology, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, 2009

MSc, Bioinformatics, University of Athens, 2005

Ptychion, Biology, University of Athens, 2004

Associate Professor in the Center for Computational and Genomic Medicine at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia

Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics at the University of Pennsylvania