Journal of Immunobiology

Marighoula Varla Leftherioti

Marighoula Varla Leftherioti
Head of the Immunobiology Department and the Recurrent Abortion Out Patient Clinic
General District-Maternity Hospital “Helena Venizelou”, Athens, Greece

Biography

Medical Doctor specialized in Medical Biopathology – Immunology, possessing a Doctorate from the Medical School of the “National and Kapodistrian” University of Athens, Greece. She is involved in Immunology since 1979, and is familiar with all lines of Laboratory Immunology with professional experience in the Immunology Departments of big hospitals in Athens area and training in European Immunology Departments. She has worked on the pre- and post-transplant immunological monitoring of kidney recipients, on HLA-typing for disease associations. She worked as Director to the Hellenic Transplant Service, and established the first Bone Marrow Donor Registry in Greece. Her current interest is Reproductive Immunology and the investigation of couples with immune-mediated fertility problems. Her research interest focuses on the study of NK cells in pregnancy failure and on the effect of intravenous immunoglobulin G infusions (IVIG) on the immune response of aborting women (Th2 shift). With her team, she was the first to investigate the role of the NK cell receptors’ repertoire in couples with RSA, to present the role of a KIR/HLA-C allorecognition system in pregnancy, and to suggest that specific combinations of maternal inhibitory KIRs and fetal HLA-C molecules may provide reduced NK cell inhibition at the feto-maternal interface and predisposition to implantation failure and/or fetal loss. During the last years she has started studies on Pre-Implantation Factor – PIF. Apart from her scientific work, she is an active member of Scientific Societies (three times President of the Hellenic Society of Immunology), and current President of the European Society for Reproductive Immunology (ESRI).

Research Interest

Reproductive Immunology
Histocompatibility
Transplantation Immunology
Unrelated Donor Haematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation.