George Bertsias graduated from the University of Crete School of Medicine (UoCSM) in 2002. After his internship, he pursued graduate studies and received his M.Sc. degree in 2006 and Ph.D. in immunology/autoimmunity in 2009. He performed post-doctoral research in the laboratory of Dr. Daniel Kastner at the National Institute of Human Genome Research Institute, National Institutes of Health (NIH/NHGRI). He is board certified in Internal Medicine and in Rheumatology. George Bertsias has developed scientific interest in systemic autoimmunity and Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (SLE) and has been an active member of the European Alliance of Associations for Rheumatology (EULAR) study group on SLE, where he has coordinated the production of clinical recommendations for the diagnosis and treatment of patients with SLE, including lupus nephritis, neuropsychiatric lupus and management of pregnancy in women with SLE.
In 2014, he was appointed Lecturer in Rheumatology-Clinical Immunology and Principal Investigator at the Laboratory of Autoimmunity and Inflammation, UoCSM. He has established a dedicated Connective Tissue Diseases (CTDs) / SLE clinic that serves as referral center for the island Crete and Southern Aegean region and is in charge of the Cretan Lupus and preclinical Lupus Registry which has registered more than 500 SLE patients. His research is focusing on the early diagnosis and outcomes of SLE, including response to novel therapeutic and biological agents. Moreover, he has collaborations with other research groups in Greece, Europe and the US and has actively participated and supervised several projects related to clinical aspects of SLE. George Bertsias is group leader at the Laboratory of Autoimmunity and Inflammation, supervising younger researchers (undergraduate and graduate students, post-doctoral fellows) exploring the molecular basis of systemic autoimmunity and the role of genetic, epigenetic and metabolic cues in driving aberrant activation of immune cells in SLE. Since 2021, he has been promoted to Associate Professor (UoCSM). He has published more than 180 peer-reviewed papers and several textbook chapters pertinent to SLE.