He holds a Degree in Agriculture/ Plant Sciences (AUTH) and a PhD from University of Reading (UK). He has been employed as a Postdoctoral research associate at the Michigan State University – USA (1993-1995) and the Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology -FORTH, at Heraklion-Crete (1996-1998).

He is tenured track University Professor since 2004, initially at the Technological Educational Institute of Crete and from 2019 is a Faculty member of Department of Agriculture- School of Agricultural Sciences of Hellenic Mediterranean University (HMU), serving currently as Dean of School, since 2014. He is also Journal Review Editor at the Frontiers in Plant Science and occasional Reviewer in international Journals, such as, Biotechnological Advances, Biotechnology Journal, Metabolic Engineering, Microbial Cell Factories, etc.

His research interest focuses in the development of biotechnological approaches for the heterologous production and exploitation of bioactive and health-protective plant products from microbial biofactories by using synthetic biology and metabolic engineering methods. These products are directly related to the quality of agronomically important commodities, as well as particularly with the quality of extra virgin olive oil, and thus can be exploited in various industrial sectors such as Agriculture (Protection), Pharmaceutical (Dietetics) and Food Technology (Antioxidants, Preservatives). He has participated as a coordinator or principal investigator in more than 20 competitive research projects.

He authored 34 publications with impact factor, referred by more than 1620 times and has currently h-index 15.