Leondios Kostrikis is a Professor of Biological Sciences at the University of Cyprus and Head of the Laboratory of Biotechnology and Molecular Virology. He received his B.Sc., M.Sc., M.Ph. and Ph.D. degrees from New York University, 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 the Rockefeller University as an Assistant Professor. He returned to Cyprus in 2003 as a Professor of the University of Cyprus at the Department of Biological Sciences. 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).
For more than three 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.
