Achilleas obtained his Ptyxio (BSc+ Diploma) in molecular Biology by the University of Crete, Greece in 2010. In the same year Achilleas received a PhD studentship by the Institute of Molecular Medicine of Newcastle University, UK. During this time he worked on the role of B cells in the liver autoimmune disease Primary Biliary Cirrhosis (PBC) using murine models of disease and human samples while advising on the first clinical study for the use of B cell depletion in the treatment of PBC. In 2014 Achilleas was awarded his PhD titled: “Direct and indirect effector function of B cells in Primary Biliary Cirrhosis” followed by his recruitment to the Translational immunology and parasitology lab in trinity college Dublin. Within a year Achilleas was instrumental in the characterization of a novel regulatory B cell population and was subsequently awarded a 2-year Irish Research Council postdoctoral fellowship to work on Atopic dermatitis. His research has highlighted a previously unappreciated role of IL-17 family cytokines in protecting from skin inflammation and was awarded several travel grants to present his work at international conferences. Currently Achilleas is a HRB postdoctoral fellow at the Molecular Rheumatology group and is interested in the identification and functional characterisation of novel B cell populations in Rheumatic diseases with the ultimate goal of identifying novel therapeutic targets.
Molecular Rheumatology, Trinity College Dublin 