The Biomedical Sciences Research Center “Al. Fleming” is a government-supported institution and has been evaluated as one of the Greek Research Centers of Excellence. Most of the researchers of the three institutes operating use the mouse as a model organism to study inflammatory disorders and lymphoid and epithelial malignancies, epigenetics, the molecular mechanisms of oncogenesis, the basic mechanisms of transcription and the characterisation of molecular mechanisms that underlie behaviour and neuronal stem cell development. The Center offers a variety of services through its animal house unit, which can house up to 15,000 mice, its transgenic and knockout services unit and its facility for proteomics and gene expression profiling. Its expertise and experience has led to a number of collaborations with the international biopharmaceutical industry, the development of tools for collaborative R&D and recently the establishment of a Spin-off company.
Dr Kollias, Director of the Center, coordinates the MUGEN Network of Excellence addressing ‘Functional Genomics in animal models of human immunological disease’ (2005-2009) and is a member of the Greek National Council for Research and is the co-leader of Infrafrontier’s Work Package 2 - Strategy and Governance.