The GMPC is delighted to announce Professor Spyridon Ntougias as Editor-in-Chief of the GMPC Thesis & Opinions Platform (GMPC-TOP). Dr. Ntougias studied chemistry (University of Athens, Greece) and received his Ph.D. in 1999 from the Department of Biological Sciences, Wye College, University of London, UK. He worked as a scientific staff at the National Agricultural Research Foundation (NAGREF) and became an academic staff in 2009 at the Department of Environmental Engineering, DUTH. Dr. Ntougias has more than 20-year research experience in applied microbiology, systems microbiology, and bioengineering. He has been involved in 28 international and national research projects (acting as Project Coordinator in 12), including European Union and International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) funded projects as well as projects funded by regional authorities and the private sector.

Dr. Ntougias has more than 70 research publications in international scientific journals (H-index: 28, Citations: 1900), three book chapters, one patent, and approximately 70 participations in international and national conferences. Dr. Ntougias described three novel bacterial genera and species; Alkalibacterium olivapovliticus gen. nov. sp. nov., Olivibacter sitiensis gen. nov. sp. nov. and Halotalea alkalilenta gen. nov. sp. nov. and amended the family Halomonadaceae. Dr. Ntougias participated in the editions of "Bergey Manual of Systematic Bacteriology", describing the genera Alkalibacterium and Halotalea, and has published the genome sequences of O. sitiensis and H. alkalilenta type strains. He was a member of the Board of Directors of the Greek Microbiological Society "Mikrobiokosmos"(a member of the Federation of European Microbiological Societies) between 2015 and 2019. Dr. Ntougias served as external project evaluator for the French National Research Agency, the Israel Science Foundation, and the Greek General Secretariat of Research and Technology.

The GMPC is looking forward to his leadership to deepen the journal's intellectual foundation and lead the GMPC-TOP editorial team.