Ilias Georgakopoulos-Soares, PhD, is an Assistant Professor at Pennsylvania State University with joint appointments in the Department of Molecular and Precision Medicine and the Department of Public Health Sciences, and is also affiliated with the One Health Microbiome Center and the Penn State Cancer Institute. Research Interests: His laboratory integrates computational biology and genomics to address fundamental and translational questions in cancer biology, gene regulation, and human disease diagnostics. Central themes include: Cancer genomics and transcriptomics, especially determinants of mutagenesis and immune microenvironment interactions. Gene regulatory mechanisms, focusing on cis-regulatory elements and the impact of DNA/RNA secondary structures such as G-quadruplexes and R-loops. Development of novel computational methods and software tools for high-throughput genomic data analysis, including nullomer-based diagnostics and massively parallel reporter assays. Scientific Output: Since 2021, Dr. Georgakopoulos-Soares has published more than 40 peer-reviewed articles spanning Nature , Nature Communications , Nature Genetics , Genome Biology , Nucleic Acids Research , and other leading journals. His work highlights converging interests in multi-omics cancer analyses, immune cell profiling, sequence-structure-function relationships, and method development for genomic sequence mining. Laboratory & Collaborations: The Georgakopoulos-Soares lab employs an interdisciplinary approach, collaborating widely across Penn State’s Cancer Institute, microbiome initiatives, and external consortia to translate genomic insights into diagnostic and therapeutic advances.












