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Christos Palaiokostas

Christos Palaiokostas
Associate Professor in Aquaculture Breeding - Genetics

Presentation

My research is focused on aquaculture breeding programs with particular emphasis on the application of high-throughput sequencing technologies for studying complex traits.

Teaching

I teach on various courses, mainly on the subject of selective breeding and applications of high-throughput sequencing technologies in aquaculture species.

I am a course leader in the course on sustainable aquaculture:

HV0200

In addition, I am a course leader in an introductory course on Python for data science:

PVG0045

Research

My current research involves the incorporation of high-throughput sequencing technologies in the ongoing national Swedish breeding programs of Arctic charr and rainbow trout (VBCN), aiming at increasing selection accuracies of complex traits.

In my previous post at the Roslin Institute I participated at the FISHBOOST project  (2015 - 2018), aiming to improving genetic resistance of farmed fish against commonly encountered diseases using high-throughput sequencing technologies.

Research projects

- Principal Investigator in the FORMAS funded project NextGenCharr

High-throughput sequencing applications in the Swedish selectively bred strain of Arctic charr

- Work package leader in a Kolarctic funded project

Arctaqua

Cooperation

During my current and previous academic posts I have always had close collaboration with associations of aquaculture producers. In particular, I have collaborated with the French aquaculture association SYSSAF in a project aiming to investigate the potential of breeding European sea bass resistant to viral nervous necrosis. Furthermore, during my current post at SLU I have close collaboration with Vattenbrukscentrum Norr where the national Swedish breeding programs are located.

Background

- Associate Professor, 2022 - current, Department of Animal Breeding and Genetics, SLU. 

- Associate Senior Lecturer, 2018 - 2022, Department of Animal Breeding and Genetics, SLU.

- Post-doc, 2015 - 2018,  The Roslin Institute, University of Edinburgh, UK.

- PhD, 2010 - 2014, Institute of Aquaculture, University of Stirling, UK.

Analysing sex determination in farmed fish using Next Generation DNA Sequencing

Supervision

During my post at SLU I have tutored the following scientists - students:

Principal supervisor for the following Postdoctoral scientists:

Khrystyna Kurta (September 2020 - current)

Co-supervisor for the following PhD students:

Redempta Kajungiro (2018 - 2020; Defended her thesis in December 2020; SLU)

Mbiru Moses (2018 -2022; Defended his thesis in February 2022; University of Dar es Salam)

Christer Nyinondi (2018 - current)

Principal supervisor for the following MSc students:

Fotis Pappas (January 2022 - June 2022)

Siamak Aslanifard (September 2020 - March 2021)

Anam Anjum (January 2020 - June 2020)

Principal supervisor for the following Erasmus students:

Alessio Longo (January 2022 - June 2022; University of Bologna, Italy)

Fotis Pappas (September 2019 - December 2019; Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece )

Selected publications

Palaiokostas,  C  et al. (2022).  A genomic-based vision on the genetic diversity and key performance traits in selectively bred Arctic charr (Salvelinus alpinus) Evolutionary applications, 15(4), 565-577 doi.org/10.1111/eva.13261.

Palaiokostas, C   (2021).  Predicting for disease resistance in aquaculture species using machine learning models Aquaculture Reports,  20, doi.org/10.1016/j.aqrep.2021.100660.

C. S. Nyinondi, et al. (2020). Assesing the genetic diversity of farmed and wild Rufiji tilapia (Oreochromis urolepis urolepis) populations using ddRAD sequencing. Ecology and evolution, 10(18): 10044-10056, doi.org/10.1002/ece3.6664.

C. Palaiokostas, et al. (2020). Application of low coverage genotyping by sequencing in selectively bred Arctic charr (Salvelinus alpinus). G3-Genes Genomes Genetics 10(6):2069-2078, doi.org/10.1534/g3.120.401295.


Publications list: