Group Members

Senior consultant physician in breast oncology at Breast Center Karolinska University Hospital, research team leader, associate professor of oncology and deputy director of doctoral studies at Karolinska Institute. Member of the national guidelines committee for breast cancer and the Karolinska Institute dissertation committee, as well as multiple committees and working groups of the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO).

Ioannis Zerdes is an Associate Professor (Docent) at Karolinska Institutet and Clinical Fellow in Medical Oncology at Karolinska University Hospital in Stockholm, Sweden. He completed his medical degree (MD) at the University of Ioannina in 2015 and PhD in breast cancer immuno-oncology at Karolinska Institutet in 2020. His research focuses on translational cancer research with a focus on breast cancer, immuno-oncology, tumor microenvironment, biomarker discovery and response-adapted treatment strategies, integrating multi-omics profiling within clinical trial and retrospective cohort settings. He has authored >50 peer-reviewed publications and has presented his work at national and international conferences. He has received competitive funding from the Swedish Cancer Society, Swedish Society of Oncology, Region Stockholm and from several foundations, among others. He is Chair of the Young Investigators Steering Committee of the EORTC Breast Cancer Group. He is also an Associate Editor of Breast Cancer Research journal and active member of ESMO, ASCO, AACR. He supervises undergraduate/master/PhD students and postdoctoral researchers and has been an invited lecturer in several oncology-focused undergraduate and postgraduate courses.

Emmanouil is a bioinformatician at Karolinska Institutet specializing in translational breast-cancer genomics. His research focuses on reproducible analysis of bulk, spatial, and single-cell transcriptomics (RNA-seq and microarray) and on method development for molecular classification in breast cancer. He holds a PhD and MSc in Biomedical Engineering and a five-year Diploma in Electronic and Computer Engineering.

Xingrong joined our group as a biostatistician in September 2023. He works closely with clinicians and researchers to design studies, manage data, and perform statistical analyses in breast cancer research. Xingrong also supports PhD students, postdocs, and colleagues in applying advanced statistical methods and conducting real-world evidence studies. Before joining the group, he gained research experience in genome-wide association studies of gastrointestinal disease and in registry-based perinatal epidemiology. With an educational background in computational mathematics and mathematical statistics, he earned his Ph.D. in 2017 from the Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics at Karolinska Institutet, where his doctoral thesis focused on developing and implementing statistical methods for survival analysis. Outside of research, Xingrong enjoys cooking and trying out new recipes. According to his own data, his body weight follows a predictable seasonal pattern- a winter increase followed by a carefully managed summer decrease.

Michail Sarafidis is a postdoctoral research fellow at Karolinska Institutet in the Theodoros Foukakis Group since 2023. He works as a bioinformatician and data analyst on translational breast cancer studies. His research involves transcriptomics, genomics, multi-omics integration, machine learning, and data mining. He holds a Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering with a specialization in Bioinformatics from the Biomedical Engineering Laboratory, National Technical University of Athens (NTUA), Greece. His doctoral work focused on molecular biomarker discovery in urinary bladder cancer. Before joining Karolinska Institutet, he worked as a junior researcher at the Institute of Communication and Computer Systems (ICCS), NTUA, contributing to national and international research projects. His expertise spans Bioinformatics, Health and Medical Informatics, and Health Data Science, with extensive experience in academic research, EU-funded projects, teaching, and course coordination. Michail also holds a Diploma (M.Eng.) in Electrical and Computer Engineering from NTUA, enabling him to apply engineering principles to biomedical research.

Sen joined our group in February 2024 as a bioinformatics postdoctoral researcher jointly affiliated with our team and Nicola Crosetto’s group at SciLifeLab. His current research focuses on applying multi-omics approaches to study clonal dynamics and treatment resistance mechanisms in breast cancer. He holds a PhD in Bioinformatics and has an academic background in Ecology. Before joining our group, Sen worked on the speciation and evolutionary genomics of mangroves, exploring how species adapt to changing environments. Sen is broadly interested in how organisms—and individual cells—respond to macro- and micro-environmental changes. He is passionate about using computational and multi-omics tools to uncover the biological stories behind complex systems.

Panagiotis has been a Postdoctoral Researcher in the group since April 2025. His research primarily focuses on secondary endpoints in clinical trials, with a particular interest in the quality of life of breast cancer patients. His PhD work encompassed evidence synthesis, epidemiology and clinical data analyses, as well as in vivo research. He holds a medical degree and a master’s in cytogenetics and cytogenetic epidemiology.

“Kerstin is a postdoctoral researcher in Theo Foukakis’ team, focusing on biomarker discovery and validation in clinical trials. Her research explores potential biomarkers with prognostic and predictive relevance. She is also involved in evaluating AI-based models for their prognostic and predictive value across different patient cohorts. Kerstin is a general surgeon, specializing on breast surgery, based in Vienna, Austria, and joined the group in May 2025. She holds a medical degree and a PhD-equivalent degree in Applied Medical Sciences.
Photo copyright: Medical University Vienna/Matern”

Rong Deng joined the group in 2025 as a postdoc focusing on breast cancer immunology. Her research explores the immune mechanisms within the tumor microenvironment, with a particular interest in T-cell phenotyping and functional characterization using advanced flow cytometry. She obtained her PhD in China. Rong is passionate about understanding how immune regulation shapes cancer progression and how these insights can contribute to novel therapeutic strategies.

Eirini is a Consultant Breast Surgeon at Akademiska University Hospital. She holds a PhD focused on magnetic techniques in breast cancer surgery and is a Fellow of the European Board of Surgery in Breast Surgery (FEBS-Breast). In October 2025, she joined the group to continue her postdoctoral research in breast cancer focusing on advancing precision and patient-centered techniques in breast cancer surgery.

Kang joined our group in 2020 to pursue his PhD, he had his dissertation in January 2026. He works with bioinformatics, with a focus on discovering novel multi-omics biomarkers associated with breast cancer treatment response. He holds a medical degree in general surgery from China and joined the group in October 2020 to pursue his doctoral studies.

Evangelos is a PhD student with medical background. He studied medicine in Athens, Greece, between 2013-2019. During his PhD he developed a solid oncologic background and collaborated effectively within the multidisciplinary team. His main interests include tumour biology, oncology, and pathology. He has experience in wet lab (from tissue staining to nucleic acid extraction), in digital pathology (QuPath software, InForm software, training and application of various cell classifiers), and in dry lab (interpretation of bulk -omics results). He is also interested in teaching, as he is a mentor and teaching assistant in the doctoral course for Msc and PhD students, entitled “Basic Course in Tumor Biology and Oncology, #3112”. Biggest achievement: Significant contribution in the development of an RNA-based signature, CDKPredX, which predicts resistance to neoadjuvant chemotherapy and sensitivity to the combination of CDK4/6 inhibitors and endocrine therapy, for ER+/HER2- breast cancer, in the context of PREDIX LumB study.

Dimitrios is a PhD student, often referred to by the team as the “wet-lab guy”.
He earned his Bachelor’s degree in Molecular Biology from the Department of Biology at the University of Crete (Greece). Since moving to Sweden in 2019, he has been member of the Foukakis group (formerly the Bergh group), and has also completed a Master’s degree in Molecular Biology.
With approximately 10 years of wet-lab experience he has been handling different types of biospecimens (i.e. FFPE, Fresh-Frozen, single-cell suspensions, whole peripheral blood, plasma, serum, etc.) derived from thousands of patients with cancer enrolled in numerous of neo-adjuvant and adjuvant clinical trials (x7 phase II and x1 phase III) as well as other patient cohorts.
His work mainly focuses on the collection, processing and handling of both tissue and liquid biospecimens, while also evaluating the feasibility of novel technique platforms. He aims to optimize both routine and experimental workflows starting from the clinic to the advanced genomic, transcriptomic and proteomic analyses and interpretation of the data.
“It is a privilege to work in the Foukakis multidisciplinary group, alongside highly skilled and talented colleagues. Our goal is to contribute to scientific progress and improve the safety and treatment of patients with breast cancer”.

Nikos is a PhD student in the Foukakis Lab, where he focuses on artificial intelligence and image analysis methods to study breast cancer. His work aims to identify and validate novel biomarkers that support personalized and precision medicine. He earned his Master’s degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Patras (Greece) in 2019. Before joining the Foukakis Lab, Nikos worked as a research assistant at the Computational Biomedicine Lab of the Institute of Computer Science, Foundation for Research and Technology – Hellas. There, he contributed to several national and European research projects involving image processing, data integration, and deep/machine learning applications in medicine. His research interests center on AI-driven approaches for translational research, biomarker discovery, and multimodal data integration. He is also particularly interested in validation studies that assess the reliability, trustworthiness, clinical utility, and comparative performance of AI methods in biomedical contexts.

Angeliki is a second-year PhD student working on biomarkers before and after neoadjuvant and adjuvant treatment in breast cancer. She applies biostatistical methods in registry-based studies and is also involved in experimental work using immunohistochemistry and digital pathology. She holds an MD degree and a medical license in Sweden (Leg. läkare). She joined the group in March 2022 as a research assistant contributing to two projects funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme and remains an active member since then.

Emilia is a first-year PhD student working with bioinformatics, where she applies multi-omics approaches (big focus on spatial transcriptomics) to unravel treatment resistance.
She holds a degree in Biotechnological Processes Engineering from Universidad San Francisco de Quito (Ecuador). Her early work focused on regenerative medicine using mitochondria, and for her undergraduate thesis, she developed a technique to slow down breast cancer cells progression through the transfer of modified mitochondria, sparking her lasting interest in breast cancer research. Emilia later earned an Erasmus Mundus scholarship for the double degree International Master in Innovative Medicine (IMIM), obtaining a Master’s in Translational Medical Research from Heidelberg University (Germany) and a Master’s in Medical Sciences from Uppsala University (Sweden).
She joined our group in January 2024 for her master thesis work and has been part of the team ever since.