Spotlight: Dr. Spiros Dimitratos

Posted March 18, 2018 in Faculty, Fullerton College, Spotlight

Fullerton’s Biotechnology Program would not be what it is today without our incredible faculty to help guide our students to success. Currently an Assistant Professor of Biology at Fullerton College, Dr. Spiros Dimitratos has intensive knowledge of the biotechnology field that transcends in the classroom. He provides insight for new students diving into the program and advice for students going into industry.

Dr. Dimitratos received his B.A. from UCLA in Biology with an emphasis in Molecular Biology of Genetics. He attended UC Irvine for graduate school where he received his Ph.D. in Developmental and Cell Biology. While attending, he worked on a family of proteins, called scaffolding proteins, that are present in the cell membranes of higher organisms. Biotechnology and research allowed him to combine his affinity for lab work and investigation.

As a professor at Fullerton College, he teaches two courses involving biotechnology: the introductory skills course and the basic protein biochemistry course. His advice to incoming students is to be prepared for a lot of work. The advises them to be ready to make sacrifices but if they do they will succeed because ‘If I can do it, you can certainly do it!’. Being both a professor of biotechnology and working in the industry, he provides useful information about what skills are valuable to carry into an industry or academia career. Basic lab skills are important foundation skills to have and are taught at Fullerton College to make our students marketable and ready for work. He also strives to help his students adopt exceptional soft skills that cannot be taught in any other classroom, except in one of our biotechnology courses at Fullerton. He believes how you interact with people, how you conduct yourself in a laboratory, and how to be a good employee in a high-stress environment are things that you must learn either empirically or through taking a course at Fullerton College, but all are important skills to have. Dr. Dimitratos is a great source of information for incoming students and former students to use in hopes of starting or continuing their path in biotechnology.