Effie Tsakalidou graduated in Chemistry from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece, in 1980. In 1981, she moved to Germany for postgraduate studies with scholarship from the “A. S. Onassis” Foundation. In 1986, she received her PhD degree in Biochemistry from the University of Cologne, Germany. Currently, she is a Professor of Food Biochemistry in the Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition and Head of the Laboratory of Dairy Research. She is also the Director of the ACA-DC collection of microorganisms of the Laboratory of Dairy Research. Her research interests lie in the field of lactic acid bacteria, with emphases on taxonomy, physiology, metabolism, bacteriocins, probiotics, genetics, genomics, metagenomics, proteomics, bioinformatics, and technological performance and applications. She has co-authored over 380 publications in the above fields, including 126 papers in peer-reviewed international journals along with 22 book chapters, 146 papers in international conferences, 82 papers in national conferences, and 12 non-conference invited papers. She has been/is the coordinator of a number of National and European research projects, member of the Editorial Board in international scientific journals, as well as a member of scientific societies. Moreover, she is involved in 3 patents, and has developed 2 Business Plans and 4 Licensing Agreements with companies abroad regarding specific applications of research results in the field of dairy food production.