Marios Georgakis

Dr. Marios Georgakis is a Clinician-Scientist and Junior Group Leader at the Institute for Stroke and Dementia Research (ISD) at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (LMU Munich). He also serves as a Visiting Scientist at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard and is completing his clinical residency in Neurology at LMU University Hospital. As Principal Investigator of the Georgakis Lab, he leads a research team focused on developing precision medicine approaches for cerebrovascular diseases.

Education:

• Medical studies (M.D.): Medical School, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece (2009-2015)
• Master studies (M.Sc.): Molecular Physiology (Neurosciences), National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece (2015-2017)
• Doctoral studies (D.Sc.) in Epidemiology, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece (2015-2019)
• Doctoral studies (Ph.D.) in Graduate School of Systemic Neurosciences (GSN), LMU Munich, Germany (2017-2020)

Dr. Georgakis' research focuses on leveraging big data from epidemiological studies and human biobanks to develop precise and personalized preventive and therapeutic strategies for cerebrovascular diseases. His work spans biomedical neuroscience with particular emphasis on cerebrovascular disease, stroke, atherosclerosis, cerebral small vessel disease, multi-omics, data science, epidemiology, and population genetics. He employs innovative bioinformatic tools including genome-wide association studies, Mendelian randomization, multi-omics integration, single-cell transcriptomics, spatial transcriptomics, and machine learning to discover causal mechanisms, identify therapeutic targets, develop risk stratification tools, and create accurate biomarkers for cerebrovascular diseases.

His laboratory has established the AtherOMICS biobank for human atherosclerotic plaque samples and developed computational pipelines for big data analyses. Recent publication trends show a strong focus on genetic architecture of stroke, inflammatory pathways in cerebrovascular disease, and development of polygenic risk scores for clinical application.

Scientific Awards:

• Emmy Noether Independent Group Leader Award, German Research Foundation (DFG), 2023
• Early Career Achievement Award, CHARGE Consortium, 2023
• Fellow of the Hertie Network of Excellence in Clinical Neuroscience, 2023
• Clinician-Scientist Fellow of the Excellence Munich Cluster for Systems Neurology (SyNergy), 2023
• Walter-Benjamin Fellowship for postdoctoral research by German Research Foundation (DFG), 2021-2022

Dr. Georgakis actively mentors a diverse team of 12 current students and postdocs including PhD students, MD students, and clinician scientists, with several alumni who have completed their training in his lab. His research is supported by multiple grants including the Emmy Noether program from the German Research Foundation, focusing on multi-omics characterization of immune mechanisms driving human atheroprogression, dissecting cerebrovascular atherosclerosis with population genetics, and developing personalized biomarkers using deep learning.

The Georgakis Lab operates two main research platforms: the AtherOMICS Biobank for human atherosclerotic plaque samples and the Big Data Lab for computational analyses. These platforms enable his team to conduct deep phenotyping of human atherosclerosis, develop in vivo diagnostics, discover therapeutic targets, and create personalized diagnostic and risk prediction tools for cardiovascular diseases.