Eleni Vergadi

Eleni Vergadi is an Assistant Professor of Paediatrics at the Medical School of University of Crete and Consultant in Paediatrics and Paeds Infectious Diseases, at Heraklion University Hospital. Dr Vergadi graduated from the Medical School of the University of Crete with honors, she obtained a Master of Science in Molecular Basis of Human Disease (University of Crete), a Doctoral Degree in Immunology at Harvard University, a postgraduate diploma in Paediatric Infectious Diseases at Oxford University and a Diploma in Vaccinology from Pasteur Institute.

She has served as a research fellow at Harvard Medical School, Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology (IMBB-Forth), and Dresden Bioinnovation Center and she has been trained in Paediatrics and Paediatric Infectious Diseases at Children’s Hospital Boston, Heraklion University Hospital, Evelina London Children’s Hospital (Guys and St Thomas NHS Trust, UK) and St Mary’s Hospital London (Imperial NHS Trust, UK).

Her research interests are focused on host responses to infections. She is currently working on the innate immune responses of neonates and young infants to bacterial infections and the identification of the immune pathways that cause susceptibility of neonatal hosts to sepsis. Specifically, she is studying the mechanism of autophagy mediated phagocytosis in young infants and its role in eliminating group B streptococcal infections, as well as the expression and function of endogenous inhibitors of leukocyte adhesion upon invasive bacterial infection in young hosts.