Dr. John Vontas is Director of the Institute Molecular Biology and Biotechnology – FORTH and Professor Pharmacology, Agricultural University of Athens.
John Vontas obtained his bachelor and PhD (1997) from the Agricultural University of Athens (AUA). Consecutive Marie Curie fellowships took him to Cardiff University (1998-2001), Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine (2002) and IMBB-FORTH (2002-2004). He was appointed Lecturer at AUA (2005) and Associate Professor at the Biology Dept University of Crete (2008-2013). He worked at the Innovative Vector Control Consortium (IVCC) (2013-14), to develop a framework for funding New Paradigms for malaria control. He was appointed Professor and Director of Pharmacology lab at AUA, as well as Group Leader Molecular Entomology at IMBB (2014+).
Since 2021, he is the Director of IMBB-FORTH. He has supervised >20 PhD thesis. His research explores biotechnology based approaches for insect control, with emphasis on insecticide resistance.
He has published many papers and gave a number of invited talks worldwide. He is Academic Editor and Editorial Board member in several international journals and has organized several conferences and symposia.
He participates in many international panels worldwide (including ERC, ANR, FWO, FCT, MRC etc). His research has received funds from a range of organizations, including EU and Industry; currently coordinates NextGenBioPest (2024-2028) and MicroBioPest (www.microbiopest.eu)
