RESEARCH INTERESTS
ABOUT/BIOGRAPHY
Nico Ioannidis graduated from the department of Chemistry of University of Ioannina in 1985; he pursued postgraduate studies at King’s College London, UK, where he was awarded his M.Sc degree in General Biochemistry in 1986 and his Ph.D degree in Biochemistry in 1991, both from the department of Biochemistry. During the following 2 years he was employed as a Research Associate by the Division of Biomolecular Sciences of the same College, where he studied a microbial haemoglobin using UV-Vis and EPR spectroscopy. Following his service at the Greek Army as a conscript, he was employed as a Collaborating Researcher (at grade D) at the EPR laboratory of IMS at “Demokritos” for the years 1995 to 1999, where he studied various aspects of the photocatalytic splitting of water by the manganese cluster of Photosystem II. He continued on the same motif working as a research associate at the same lab until 2017, when from that year onwards he was associated with the EPR lab of the now Institute of Nanotechnology and Nanoscience on a permanent basis as Functional Scientific personnel Grade B. His main scientific interests lie in the study of bioinorganic catalytic centres which give rise to phenomena such as charge separation, electron/proton transfer, water splitting etc. He studies electron transfer reactions coupled to proton translocation, in PSII, which are crucial to the elucidation of the water splitting mechanism, by employing EPR spectroscopy (at 9.4 and 34 GHz). Also, the identification and characterization of short-lived reaction intermediates which can be trapped during the reaction cycle of PSII at liquid He temperatures. These constitute organic radicals (tyrosine) which act synergistically with the Mn cluster (responsible for water oxidation). The aim of understanding the chemistry of elementary steps in the PSII reaction cycle at the molecular level is to synthesize inorganic counterparts capable of harnessing and utilisation of solar energy. He is also interested in the trapping of short-lived reactive oxygen species (ROS), and other radicals, formed during semiconductor photocatalysis, with the aid of nitrone spin traps such DMPO and BMPO, and their identification by EPR spectroscopy. EPR characterization of silica hybrid spin crossover water soluble nanoparticles. Also in collaboration with Dr Tangoulis (Uni. of Patras) there is continuing interest on EPR characterization of silica hybrid spin crossover water soluble nanoparticles, coordination polymers of Fe(II) at the nanoscale which are an exciting new class of nanomaterials whose main feature is the infinite bulk molecule based network presenting tunable size and shape dependent properties, a high surface area to volume ratio and tailored functionalized surfaces. A new and unexplored research area for these nanoparticles is bioimaging where they can potentially be employed as Magnetic Resonance Imaging contrast agents.