Maria E. Grigoriou, a molecular and developmental biology professor at at the Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics (MBG) of Democritus University of Thrace, holds a BSc in biology from the National Kapodistrian University of Athens and an MSc and PhD from the University of Crete. As a post-doc fellow at the Medical School of the University of Crete and the National Institute for Medical Research (now Crick Institute, London), she earned fellowships from the Medical Research Fund (UK) and the European Union (Training and Mobility of Researchers-Marie Curie). Over the past decade she, along with collaborators, has secured approximately EUR 3 million in competitive research funding and played a pivotal role in coordinating the next-generation sequencing unit of MBG, a node of the National Research Infrastructure OMIC-ENGINE that was further expanded as an integral part of the regional research infrastructures FOODBIOMES and AGRO4+. With extensive expertise in molecular and cell biology methods, she serves as a reviewer for scientific journals and agencies, including the Greek Secretariat for Research and Technology, the Portuguese Ministry of Education, and the Research Promotion Foundation (Cyprus). Her work, published in peer-reviewed journals, has garnered significant acclaim with over 4500 citations.