Ageliki Tsagaratou, PhD

Associate Professor

Ageliki received her BSc degree in Biology from the National and Kapodistrian University (Athens, Greece) in 2004 and pursued her PhD at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in the laboratory of Dr. George Mosialos where she focused her research on the truncation of the catalytic domain of the cylindromatosis (CYLD) tumor suppressor. Dr. Tsagaratou was a postdoctoral research fellow in the laboratory of Dr. Anjana Rao at La Jolla Institute for Allergy and Immunology and has served as an Instructor at the same institution. Her research program at La Jolla focused on T cell development and differentiation. She joined UNC in September 2018. Ageliki’s primary appointment is in the Department of Genetics. In addition, she is a member of the UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center, the Inflammatory Diseases Institute and the Center for Translational Immunology.  Since May 2020, Ageliki holds a secondary appointment in the  Department of Microbiology & Immunology. She is a faculty mentor in the UNC Biological & Biomedical Sciences Program (BBSP), the Curriculum in Genetics and Molecular biology (GMB), the Curriculum in Cellular Biology and Physiology (CBP) and the  PhD program in Microbiology & Immunology . Her research interests are focused on epigenetic and transcriptional regulation in T cell differentiation, function, and disease.

Mentor Training:

• Bias 101
• Faculty Mentoring Workshop for Biomedical Researchers
• Groundwater Approach: Building a practical understanding of structural racism
• Implicit Bias Awareness
• REI Phase I Training
• Safe Zone
• Culturally Aware Mentoring

 

Marianthi Gkioulmpasani

Research Specialist

M.Sc. in Protein Biotechnology, Biology Department at the University of Crete, Greece

B.Sc. in Biology (major in Biomolecular Sciences and Biotechnology), Biology Department,  University of Crete, Greece.

 

Mary Anna Stiles

Undergraduate Research assistant

Biology Major, Chemistry Minor at UNC Chapel Hill

Sig Reinholdt

Undergraduate Research assistant

Biology Major at UNC Chapel Hill

 

Bioinformatics Collaborators

Dr. Tarmo Äijö

Ph.D. Bioinformatics and Computer Science

Aalto University Finland

M.Sc. Signal processing and Mathematics

B. Sc. Signal processing and Multimedia

Tampere University of Technology, Finland

 

Dr. Siyao Liu

Ph.D. UNC Chapel Hill

Bioinformatics Scientist

Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

 

Former Lab Members

Jair Ernesto Valenzuela

Master’s recipient August 2025

Graduate Student , Joint Department of Biomedical Engineering (BME)

University of North Carolina/North Carolina State University

B.S. in Chemical Engineering, concentration in Biotechnology/ Biomaterials

University of Virginia

January 2024-August 2025

 

Arianis Hernández Peña

Undergratuate Summer Intern at UNC Chapel Hill

AMGEN Scholar Research Intern at UNC Chapel Hill

Biology Major at University of Puerto Rico at Humacao

May 2025-July 2025

Julia Buquera Bettes

Undergraduate Research assistant

Biology Major, Chemistry Minor at UNC Chapel Hill

September 2023-May 2025

Yajing Zheng

Undergraduate Research assistant

Biology Major at UNC Chapel Hill

Latrevia Robinson

Summer Undergraduate Research Experience (SURE)  student in Biological Mechanisms at UNC Chapel Hill

URISE Scholar  at Claflin University South Carolina, Biotechnology Major, Psychology Minor, Class of 2026

Dimitris Theofilatos

Postdoctoral Research Associate

Currently at NIEHS

 

Nikolas  Tsiouplis

Undergraduate Research Assistant (February 2019-May 2021)

BIOL395 H

2020 Hagadorn Award Recipient

SURF 2020 Recipient

Class 2021

Current position: MD candidate at Thomas Jefferson School of Medicine

Fiona Wissink

Undergraduate Research Assistant (February 2019-November 2020)

BIOL395H

Program for Precision Medicine in Health Care (PPMH) SURF 2020 Recipient

Class 2021

Current position: MD candidate at University  College, Dublin, Ireland

Ryan Sheehy

BBSP rotating graduate student

Fall Rotation 2020

Wes (David) Bailey

Research Technician (January  2020- September 2020)

B.S. in Microbiology, North Carolina State University

Jake Wrobel

Sonam Saxena

Lilly Chiou

1st year BBSP graduate student (Fall rotation)

B.S. Duke University

Current position: Graduate student at the Vaziri lab, UNC Chapel Hill

Ennessa Curry

Isaiah Kim

Research Assistant (September 2018-March 2019)

B.S. UNC Chapel Hill