Dr. Christos Zamioudis has a first degree in Agricultural Sciences with specialization in Plant Protection, and a MSc degree in Applied Genetics & Biotechnology. He obtained both degrees at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki with distinction. After receiving a national fellowship from the Greek State Scholarship Foundation (I.K.Y.), he moved to the Netherlands and joined the Plant-Microbe Interactions group of Utrecht University (PMI-UU) headed by Professor Corné Pieterse, a pioneer in the field of beneficial Plant-Microbe Interactions. His PhD thesis entitled “Signaling in Arabidopsis Root in Response to Beneficial Rhizobacteria“ was distinguished in the Hugo de Vries competition for the best PhD thesis in Plant Sciences in the Netherlands for the year 2012 (ranked 2nd). Upon his PhD completion, he continued as Postdoctoral Researcher in the European Research Council (ERC)-funded project entitled “The Plant Immune System: a multidisciplinary approach to uncover how plants simultaneously deal with beneficial and parasitic organisms to maximize profits and protection”. After 7 productive years in total at Utrecht University with important contributions to our understanding on the ways plants interact with beneficial soil-borne microbes, he pursued a career path at the corporate world by joining Rijk Zwaan B.V., one of the world’s biggest companies in vegetable breeding and seed production. From the position of the Phytopathology Researcher, he developed more than 20 highthrouput screening protocols for the purpose of testing genebank material for resistance to pathogenic bacteria and further identified novel resistance sources in various wild species. As of December 2018, he is an Assistant Professor of Plant Pathology at the Department of Agricultural Development of the Democritus University of Thrace. His research interests focus on the structure and function of the root microbiome and the molecular basis of plant resistance to pathogenic bacteria. He has published articles in leading scientific journals (h index=11, >2500 citations; Scopus) on the interactions of plants with beneficial bacteria. As can be noticed, MICROBREED conveys his experiences in the two sectors, academia and plant industry.