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| ΚΩΣΤΡΙΚΗΣ ΛΕΟΝΤΙΟΣ | |
| KOSTRIKIS LEONTIOS | |
| ... | |
| ΚΑΘΗΓΗΤΗΣ/ΡΙΑ | |
| Τμήμα Βιολογικών Επιστημών | |
| ΘΕΕ 02 - Σχολή Θετικών και Εφαρμοσμένων Επιστημών | |
| Πανεπιστημιούπολη | |
| B170 | |
| +35722892885 | |
| +35722895096 | |
| www.kostrikislab.com |
Προσωπικό Προφίλ
Dr. Leondios Kostrikis is a tenured Professor of Biological Sciences at University of Cyprus, Head of Laboratory of Biotechnology and Molecular Virology and Vice-Dean of the Faculty of Pure and Applied Sciences. He received his B.Sc. (1987), M.Sc. (1989), M.Ph. (1990) and Ph.D. (1993) degrees from New York University (NYU), United States. This was followed by post-doctoral research at the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center of Rockefeller University (New York) on the molecular virology of human immunodeficiency virus. He joined the faculty of the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center as a staff investigator in 1998 and the Rockefeller University as an Assistant Professor in 1999. He moved to Cyprus in 2003, joining the University of Cyprus. He was a Fulbright Scholar for his undergraduate studies at NYU (1983-1987) and has held fellowship awards from the Elizabeth Glazer Pediatric AIDS Foundation, the Aaron Diamond Foundation and the Patti Birch 1991 Trust, United States. He has directed over twenty competitive research grants from the US National Institutes of Health (NIH), the European Commission, international charitable foundations and the Cyprus Research Promotion Foundation (CRPF). He is an Editorial Board member for fourteen international journals, and has served on study sections and committees for European and international grant agencies, charities, and scientific conferences in HIV/AIDS. He is a co-founder and Executive Board member of the European Society for Translational Antiviral Research (ESAR) and Vice President of Board of Directors of the Takis & Louki Nemitsas Foundation. In 2019, he was elected as a Founding Member (Biological Sciences) of The Cyprus Academy of Sciences, Letters and Arts and in 2020, he was elected as Member of the Biosciences Steering Panel of the European Academies Science Advisory Council (EASAC) and as a Distinguished Fellow of the International Engineering and Technology Institute (IETI). | |
Emerging and re-emerging human infectious diseases including viral infections constitute an ever-increasing public health threat with devastating socioeconomic consequences of global proportions. In the last forty years alone, humanity has witnessed a number of devastating viral epidemics such as those caused by Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV), the virus that causes the Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS), Ebola virus, Zika virus (ZIKV) and most recently 2019-nCoV among many others. HIV currently infects significant fractions of the worldwide population and causes chronic disease resulting in a major burden to public health. In the last twenty years, combined antiretroviral drug therapy (CART), has been developed to specifically target HIV-1 with outstanding success, resulting in a dramatic decrease in mortality among HIV-1-infected individuals. However, the genetic variability of HIV-1 constitutes the most striking challenge in effectively treating HIV-1 infection. Specifically, the accumulation of drug resistant mutations during suboptimal therapy severely affects the clinical benefits of CART, leading to therapy failure and potentially the transmission of drug-resistant HIV-1 strains to newly-infected individuals. Furthermore, the transmission dynamics of HIV-1 in human populations in different geographic regions is important in formulating tailored prevention policies including preventive antiretroviral treatment strategies. For more than two decades, Prof. Kostrikis’ research efforts focus, on a translational research program that characterizes human genetic and viral factors responsible for major global viral infectious disease threats, that studies the molecular dynamics of HIV-1 infection and the global spread of HIV-1 drug-resistance and that translates this knowledge into novel therapeutic interventions. Over the years, Prof. Kostrikis has made significant contributions to the study of human genetics in the transmission of HIV-1 and disease progression, the global molecular epidemiology of HIV-1 infection and global transmission drug resistance. He is considered as one of the world’s pioneers and top experts in establishing the role of human genetics in the transmission of HIV-1 and progression to AIDS. He has made seminal contributions by creating innovative nucleic-acid-based molecular methodologies and applying them to demonstrate the important implications of natural polymorphisms found in human chemokine receptor genes in the transmission of HIV-1 and disease progression by utilizing well-established American and European HIV/AIDS study cohorts. The results of his studies have a direct impact on the clinical care of HIV-1-infected individuals including Cypriot patients and underline the world-wide dedication towards achieving the goal of diminishing new HIV-1 infections and AIDS by taking full advantage of the therapeutic and preventive effects of combined antiretroviral drug therapy. Prof. Kostrikis has now turned his attention to novel concepts in HIV-1 vaccine development and prevention of HIV-1 transmission. Prof. Kostrikis work also focuses on the molecular detection of coronaviruses. During the SARS coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) outbreak in 2003 in China and Canada, Prof. Kostrikis applied cutting‐edge technology to develop a novel method for the molecular detection of the SARS coronavirus as well as other SARS‐associated coronaviruses, which was patented in the United States in 2010. Since the onset of increased COVID‐19 infections in late 2019, has been building on this technology to develop a versatile and adaptable platform that through molecular testing will effectively and accurately detect viral strains of Covid‐19 and potentially other infectious agents. Due to his expertise, since the start of the COVID‐19 epidemic in Cyprus in March 2020 and until January 2021, he also served as a Member of the Scientific Advisory Committee of the Ministry of Health and the President of the Republic of Cyprus for COVID‐19, in formulating science‐based recommendations and guidelines for containing and managing the epidemic in Cyprus. | |
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Profile Information
Dr. Leondios Kostrikis is a tenured Professor of Biological Sciences at University of Cyprus, Head of Laboratory of Biotechnology and Molecular Virology and Vice-Dean of the Faculty of Pure and Applied Sciences. He received his B.Sc. (1987), M.Sc. (1989), M.Ph. (1990) and Ph.D. (1993) degrees from New York University (NYU), United States. This was followed by post-doctoral research at the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center of Rockefeller University (New York) on the molecular virology of human immunodeficiency virus. He joined the faculty of the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center as a staff investigator in 1998 and the Rockefeller University as an Assistant Professor in 1999. He moved to Cyprus in 2003, joining the University of Cyprus. He was a Fulbright Scholar for his undergraduate studies at NYU (1983-1987) and has held fellowship awards from the Elizabeth Glazer Pediatric AIDS Foundation, the Aaron Diamond Foundation and the Patti Birch 1991 Trust, United States. He has directed over twenty competitive research grants from the US National Institutes of Health (NIH), the European Commission, international charitable foundations and the Cyprus Research Promotion Foundation (CRPF). He is an Editorial Board member for fourteen international journals, and has served on study sections and committees for European and international grant agencies, charities, and scientific conferences in HIV/AIDS. He is a co-founder and Executive Board member of the European Society for Translational Antiviral Research (ESAR) and Vice President of Board of Directors of the Takis & Louki Nemitsas Foundation. In 2019, he was elected as a Founding Member (Biological Sciences) of The Cyprus Academy of Sciences, Letters and Arts and in 2020, he was elected as Member of the Biosciences Steering Panel of the European Academies Science Advisory Council (EASAC) and as a Distinguished Fellow of the International Engineering and Technology Institute (IETI). | |
Emerging and re-emerging human infectious diseases including viral infections constitute an ever-increasing public health threat with devastating socioeconomic consequences of global proportions. In the last forty years alone, humanity has witnessed a number of devastating viral epidemics such as those caused by Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV), the virus that causes the Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS), Ebola virus, Zika virus (ZIKV) and most recently 2019-nCoV among many others. HIV currently infects significant fractions of the worldwide population and causes chronic disease resulting in a major burden to public health. In the last twenty years, combined antiretroviral drug therapy (CART), has been developed to specifically target HIV-1 with outstanding success, resulting in a dramatic decrease in mortality among HIV-1-infected individuals. However, the genetic variability of HIV-1 constitutes the most striking challenge in effectively treating HIV-1 infection. Specifically, the accumulation of drug resistant mutations during suboptimal therapy severely affects the clinical benefits of CART, leading to therapy failure and potentially the transmission of drug-resistant HIV-1 strains to newly-infected individuals. Furthermore, the transmission dynamics of HIV-1 in human populations in different geographic regions is important in formulating tailored prevention policies including preventive antiretroviral treatment strategies. For more than two decades, Prof. Kostrikis’ research efforts focus, on a translational research program that characterizes human genetic and viral factors responsible for major global viral infectious disease threats, that studies the molecular dynamics of HIV-1 infection and the global spread of HIV-1 drug-resistance and that translates this knowledge into novel therapeutic interventions. Over the years, Prof. Kostrikis has made significant contributions to the study of human genetics in the transmission of HIV-1 and disease progression, the global molecular epidemiology of HIV-1 infection and global transmission drug resistance. He is considered as one of the world’s pioneers and top experts in establishing the role of human genetics in the transmission of HIV-1 and progression to AIDS. He has made seminal contributions by creating innovative nucleic-acid-based molecular methodologies and applying them to demonstrate the important implications of natural polymorphisms found in human chemokine receptor genes in the transmission of HIV-1 and disease progression by utilizing well-established American and European HIV/AIDS study cohorts. The results of his studies have a direct impact on the clinical care of HIV-1-infected individuals including Cypriot patients and underline the world-wide dedication towards achieving the goal of diminishing new HIV-1 infections and AIDS by taking full advantage of the therapeutic and preventive effects of combined antiretroviral drug therapy. Prof. Kostrikis has now turned his attention to novel concepts in HIV-1 vaccine development and prevention of HIV-1 transmission. Prof. Kostrikis work also focuses on the molecular detection of coronaviruses. During the SARS coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) outbreak in 2003 in China and Canada, Prof. Kostrikis applied cutting‐edge technology to develop a novel method for the molecular detection of the SARS coronavirus as well as other SARS‐associated coronaviruses, which was patented in the United States in 2010. Since the onset of increased COVID‐19 infections in late 2019, has been building on this technology to develop a versatile and adaptable platform that through molecular testing will effectively and accurately detect viral strains of Covid‐19 and potentially other infectious agents. Due to his expertise, since the start of the COVID‐19 epidemic in Cyprus in March 2020 and until January 2021, he also served as a Member of the Scientific Advisory Committee of the Ministry of Health and the President of the Republic of Cyprus for COVID‐19, in formulating science‐based recommendations and guidelines for containing and managing the epidemic in Cyprus. | |
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