Dr. Gkretsi is an Associate Professor of Cellular and Molecular Pathology at the Department of Life Sciences of the European University Cyprus and currently serves as the coordinator of the Biomedical Sciences Program. She received her Diploma in Biology from the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece in 2001 and her Ph.D in Cellular and Molecular Pathology from the University of Pittsburgh Medical School, Pittsburgh, USA in 2006. Following completion of her Ph.D, she worked as post-doctoral fellow under the Marie Curie ITN program at the BSRC Al. Fleming in Athens, Greece. In 2009 she was elected Researcher D at the Center for Research & Technology-Thessaly (CE.RE.TE.TH), Larissa, Greece and was promoted to Researcher C (Research Assistant Professor) in 2012 in the same institution (now CE.R.T.H-Centre for Research & Technology-Hellas). She acquired funding from Greek EU funded programs and was the recipient of the prestigious European Association for the Study of the Liver (EASL) Sheila Sherlock fellowship award 2012. During 2010-2014, she served as a visiting lecturer at the University of Thessaly Medical School in Greece while from 2014-2017 she worked as a senior scientist in the Cancer Biophysics Lab of the University of Cyprus. In total, she has published 45 papers in peer reviewed international scientific journals and her work has received over 1100 citations (1166 by Scopus and 1692 by Google scholar) with an h index of 18 (Scopus) and 22 (Google scholar), respectively. She has presented her work in 11 poster and 16 oral presentations in international scientific conferences while she also serves as reviewer in 26 scientific journals and as an Editorial Board member in four (4). Dr. Gkretsi is currently the head of the “Cancer Metastasis and Adhesion“ research group of the newly founded Basic and Translational Cancer Research Center . Her current research is focusing on the study of the role of extracellular matrix (ECM), integrin-proximal protein complexes, cell adhesion and the cytoskeleton in basic cellular processes related to cancer progression and metastasis. In an attempt to better approximate the real tumor setting and microenvironment both two-dimensional (2D) and 3D cell culture models are used. 3D models include culturing cancer cells or tumor spheroids in collagen gels. The ultimate goal is the determination of the molecular mechanism driving cancer cell metastasis in relation to ECM and the identification of novel potential metastasis biomarkers and/or therapeutic targets.