Research Associate in the UK Dementia Research Institute at Cardiff University. Nikoleta studied Molecular Biology & Genetics at Democritus University of Thrace in Greece. During her undergraduate studies she was awarded an Erasmus exchange European studentship and a Leonardo da Vinci Programme award which allowed her to undertake a diploma Thesis at the University of Liverpool in the UK. Next came a PhD in cardiovascular disease and diabetes in the Centre for Cardiovascular and Metabolic Research at Hull York Medical School and postdoctoral work at the University of Surrey and UCL. It was then that Nikoleta decided to focus her career in dementia research and she joined the UK DRI complement group in Cardiff in October 2018 as a postdoctoral researcher. Nikoleta's research interests include the role of innate immunity and neuroinflammation in the development of Alzheimer’s disease. She is fascinated by the complement system and its critical role in AD pathogenesis that makes it a potential therapeutic target. Her postdoctoral work focuses on the role of the complement receptor 1 (CR1)-given its potential to regulate the complement cascade, complement component deposition and phagocytosis locally and its role in immune clearance- to provide detailed knowledge about how it confers risk for AD.