People

Jiorgos Kourelis is a Royal Society University Research Fellow and Assistant Professor in Plant Sciences and Food Security at Imperial College London. The lab engineers plant immune receptors to recognise pathogen molecules they cannot detect in nature, combining structure-informed protein engineering with experimental validation in Nicotiana benthamiana. Before Imperial, Jiorgos worked at The Sainsbury Laboratory in Norwich with Sophien Kamoun (2019–2023), and completed his DPhil at the University of Oxford with Renier van der Hoorn (2014–2019).

The lab is hiring a postdoctoral research associate funded by the ERC Starting Grant. The role works on engineering NLR immune receptors with new pathogen specificities, bridging structural prediction, high-throughput screening, and in planta validation. Get in touch via the Contact page with a CV and a short note on your research interests.

Originally from Milan, Italy and Geneva, Switzerland. BSc in Biological Sciences at Imperial College London; MRes in Molecular Plant and Microbial Sciences at Imperial College London; MA in Musical Theatre Acting and Performance at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama. Works on synthetic immune signalling.

Originally from Bratislava, Slovakia. BSc in Biology with Placement Year at the University of Sheffield; MRes in Molecular and Cellular Biosciences at Imperial College London. Works on host-pathogen protein interactions at scale.

Originally from Lishui, China. BSc in Horticulture at Shanghai Normal University; MSc in Biomedical Engineering at The Chinese University of Hong Kong. Works on scalable immune-receptor engineering.

Originally from London, England. BSc in Biological Sciences (Molecular and Cellular Biology) at the University of Exeter, First Class Honours and Dean’s List. Works on tools for plant-immunity research.

Originally from Aberystwyth, Wales. BA (Hons) in Biological Natural Sciences at Gonville and Caius College, University of Cambridge. Works on modular plant immunity.

Originally from Auckland, New Zealand. BSc in Biochemistry at Imperial College London, First Class Honours and Dean’s List all years. Works on immune signalling and receptor discovery.

Originally from Frankfurt, Germany. BSc in Biological Sciences at Imperial College London, First Class Honours and Dean’s List all years. Works on computational approaches to plant immunity.

Originally from London, England. MRes in Molecular Plant and Microbial Science at Imperial College London. Works on immune receptor networks.

Originally from [city/country]. [BSc/BA] in [subject] at [university]. Worked on synthetic biology tools for plant biology.

Originally from London, England. Currently completing a BSc in Biological Sciences with a Year in Research at Imperial College London. Worked on synthetic biology tools for plant biology.

Originally from Manila, the Philippines. BA in Natural Sciences at the University of Cambridge. Worked on cell-surface and intracellular immune signalling.

Originally from [city/country]. [BSc/BA] in [subject] at [university]. Worked on bioreporters for immune activation.