Christos Kannas, PhD
Research Software Engineer
About
Research Software Engineer and computational scientist with 15+ years building cheminformatics platforms, knowledge graphs, and scientific workflow systems. Experienced translating research problems into scalable software and HPC pipelines supporting drug discovery and data-driven science.
Work Experience
AstraZeneca
Gothenburg, Sweden
February 2020 – Present
Associate Principal Scientist (Machine Learning/Cheminformatics Expert)
Member of MolecularAI, working on projects related to synthesis prediction, reactivity prediction, and chemical reaction space exploration.
Highlights
- Built cheminformatics systems for multi-step reaction enumeration enabling automated library design.
- Designed and developed a Reaction Knowledge Graph supporting computational drug discovery workflows.
- Refactored and automated Frequent Hitters scoring using SLURM-based HPC workflows, improving reproducibility and execution efficiency..
- Partnered with medicinal chemists and data scientists to translate research workflows into production software.
The Institute of Cancer Research
Sutton, United Kingdom
February 2018 – January 2020
Chemoinformatics Officer
Member of Data Science Team, developing chemistry data pipelines for canSAR Project.
Highlights
- Designed automated pipelines for compound normalization, annotation, and property calculation.
- Modernized legacy cheminformatics backend services, improving performance and maintainability.
- Re-architected chemistry database infrastructure to improve data integrity and research accessibility.
University of Sheffield
Sheffield, United Kingdom
February 2014 – January 2016
Research Associate in Chemoinformatics
Research Associate for a Unilevel & TSB funded project, exploring Multi-/Many-Criteria Design of surfactant molecules.
Highlights
- Developed software for in-silico chemical transformations enabling large-scale compound library enumeration.
- Implemented evolutionary multi-objective optimization algorithms for molecular design.
- Collaborated with academic and industrial partners to deploy computational design methods.
University of Cyprus
Nicosia, Cyprus
January 2011 – January 2014
Researcher (Special Scientist)
Chemoinformatics Expert in two EU FP-7 funded projects:GRANATUM (30 months) and Linked2Safety (6 months).
Highlights
- Led development of a web-based scientific workflow platform built on Galaxy for virtual screening.
- Integrated heterogeneous biomedical datasets and implemented data-mining algorithms for patient-safety analysis.
- Designed user-focused interfaces and optimized workflow execution performance.
Noesis Chemoinformatics
Nicosia, Cyprus
January 2008 – November 2010
Junior Software Programmer
Multi-Objective Drug Design, Chemoinformatics Software Development.
Highlights
- Developed software for molecular storage, clustering, decomposition, and profiling.
- Implemented multi-objective de novo drug design algorithms.
Contact
Gothenburg, Västra Götaland SE
+46702263039
Education
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2011 2017
University of Cyprus
Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)
Computer Science
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2005 2010
University of Cyprus
Master of Science (M.Sc.)
Advanced Information Technologies
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2000 2005
University of Ioannina
Bachelor of Science (B.Sc.)
Computer Science
Grade: 6.82/10
Skills
Programming
Python
Scientific Python
API Design
Data Pipelines
Machine Learning & Data
Cheminformatics
Knowledge Graphs
Evolutionary Algorithms
Multi/Many Objective Optimization
Data Modeling
Systems & Infrastructure
HPC
SLURM
Workflow Automation
Scientific Platforms
Software Engineering
System Design
Refactoring
Backend Development
Research Software Engineering