Lab News

Click below on the year you're interested in to read the relevant News
2016
October
  • We finalised the purchase the first set of basic and specialised equipment of the Lab! Visit our Facilities section for more details!
September
  • ​The Lab opens its doors for the first time, at the newly built laboratory wing of the Siakolas Educational Centre for Clinical Medicine building (Medical School, UCY) We are very excited and look forward to a productive period ahead!
2017
October
  • Our Lab hosted a workshop on Laboratory Diagnosis of Diphtheria, co-organized by the WHO Global Collaborating Centre for Diphtheria, Public Health England (UK), the WHO Regional Office for Europe (Denmark) and the University of Cyprus Medical School. Twitt link
  • Our Lab welcomes four Interns who will receive laboratory training and will be working in various projects. The Interns are all 5th year Medical students at the University of Cyprus and thee are: Ms Chrystalla Sourouppi,  Ms Irene Tsapa, Mr Alexandros Georgiou, Ms Ifigenia Yioti and Ms Georgia Christodoulou. ​
  • The Lab participated in the 3rd Cyprus Oncology Conference in Limassol, Cyprus, entitled "New Frontiers in Cancer Prevention and Personalised Treatment", with the submission of two abstracts accepted as posters which were presented during the conference.
September
  • Dr Nikolas Dietis talks about the advantages of using a multi-conditioning system in rodent behavioural research, in his article at the September Newsletter issue of the International Behavioural Neuroscience Society (IBNS), in which he was invited to serve as a guest Editor. 
  • The Lab welcomes a new member! Dr Marina Demetriades has joined us as a post-doctoral researcher with the aim to establish the lab's Drug Library and develop specific screening assays for targeting. Marina has an organic chemistry background and a solid experience in biochemistry. Her previous post was at the University of Oxford (UK) where she worked with Prof Francis Barr on phosphoprotein phosphatases and their role in cell cycle regulation, as potential new cancer targets. Marina is funded by the University of Cyprus Post-Doctoral Program 2017 after a successful proposal.
August
  • We presented recent data at the 2017 meeting of the European Behavioural Pharmacology Society, in Heraklion (Crete, Greece) with a presented poster entitled: Morphine Dosing Regimen Determines The Inhibitory & Excitatory Effect On Motor Behaviour And Antinociceptive Tolerance (N. Dietis, A. Paul, N. Guven).
April
  • Dr Nikolas Dietis gave an open lecture with the title "Drug Repurposing: a powerful alternative strategy to Drug Discovery & Development" at the Department of Biological Sciences, University of Cyprus. The lecture introduced the concept of drug repurposing and its important central role in the paradigm shift of drug discovery.
March
  • The President of the Republic of Cyprus, Mr Nikos Anastasiades, visited the Lab during his visit at the Medical School for the inauguration of the Siakolas Educational Centre for Clinical Medicine building. Dr Dietis gave the President a short tour in the Lab and highlighted the Lab's activities and facilities. Mr Anastasiades wished for success in our endeavours and underlined the support of the Republic to the School's and Lab's research aims.
  • The Lab initiated and played a leading role towards the final agreement and signing of an Agreement of Cooperation between the University of Cyprus and the Institute of Materia Medica of the People's Republic of China. The Agreement was initiated by fruitful discussions between Dr Dietis and Professor Guan-Ηua Du (Director of Chinese Pharmacological Society, Vice President of Institutes of Pharmaceutical Science, Director of  the National Center for Pharmaceutical Screening in the Institute of Materia Medica). The signed Agreement includes future efforts for research collaboration, co-organization of research and academic activities, as well as exchange of students & staff for training purposes and sharing of research know-how.
February
  • The Lab has established a research collaboration with the Bioinformatics Group at the Cyprus Institute of Neurology & Genetics (CING). The group is led by Prof George Spyrou, Bioinformatics ERA Chair at CING. 
  • Dr Dietis had a very constructive discussion with the Director of State General Laboratory (SGL) of the Republic of Cyprus, Dr Popi Kanari, and the Senior Analyst of the Laboratory of Pharmaceutical Control (Lab 4), Mrs Dora Partassides, for collaborating on possible common research areas between the Lab and the SGL. Dr Kanari & Ms Partassides offered the SGL's support on our lab's efforts to establish a local consortium on drug discovery & repurposing.
January
  • The Lab participated in the submission of an Integrated Grant proposal, as a key partner, at the Research Promotion Foundation of Cyprus "Restart 2016-2020" grand round, with the lead of our collaborator Dr Andreani Odysseos.
  • The first teaching pharmacology laboratory classes of the UCY Medical School took place at our Lab's facilities, where 3rd year Medic students participated in basic laboratory skills training-sessions and conducted experiments on drug quantification exercises.
2018
October
  • New interns in town! Six bright, enthousiastic and ambitious interns have joined our lab to form our new lab group membership for the academic years 2018-2019 and 2019-2020. The team of six include three 2nd year Med students (Ms Melani Theodoridou, Mr Antonis Pylavas and Mr Nikolas Ververides) and three 3rd year Med students (Ms Aigli Kosti, Ms Persefoni Panayi and Mr Andreas Menikou). The young undergrads will be trained fully and work on current lab projects. Welcome!
November
  • Our lab has started a collaboration with the group of Dr Dimitris Tsaltas (Associate Professor) at the Department of Agricultural Sciences, Biotechnology & Food Sciences, at CUT. The two labs will be collaborating on a pharmacological screening of endophytes grown out of Cypriot plants. 
June
  • Our automated zebrafish facility received an official licence by the Vet Services of the Republic of Cyprus for using zebrafish as an experimental model organism in biomedical research, becoming the first zebrafish facility in Cyprus!
2019
May
  • New Lab member recruited!  Ms Christy Pavlou has joined our lab as a Postgraduate Associate / Research Assistant and will be working on our START project. Christy has a solid academic background in Biomedical Science and Neuroscience, and a previous experience as a research assistant at the St.Mary's Hospital London - Imperial College. Find out more about Christy by clicking here. 
March
  • New project funded! Our Lab received a two-year funding from UCY for a study on antimicrobial resistance. The new project named "University of CypruS acTion Against antimicRobial resisTance (START)" will be the first laboratory based exploratory research project in Cyprus against antimicrobial resistance. START will aim to set up a compound library of novel drugs, clinical drugs and extracts from plant bacteria that will be pharmacologically screened against a bacterial bank of sensitive and resistant bacteria, with the aim to discover new antimicrobial agents and drugs that can reduce antimicrobial resistance.
August
  • TIWI career outreach project. Dr Dietis participated in a science career outreach project by the ReSciTEG (Research in Science and Technology Education Group) at UCY, working on the TIWI project (Teaching ICT With Inquiry), aiming to promote science careers to students in primary and secondary education. Dr Dietis talked about the skills and knowledge required to become an academic Pharmacologist. For more details and a video produced, visit this LINK.
October
  • New internship round - old folks leaving, newbies joined! We are happy to welcome nine new Interns in the lab, 2nd year UCY Medicine students, who will be joining the lab research activities participating and working on specific research projects. The newbies are Mr Charalambos Anagnostopoulos, Mrs Christina Pasiouli, Mr Petros Pieri, Mr Stephanos Hilides and Mr Argyris Constantinou (working at antibacterial screenings), Mrs Marina Evaggelou, Mrs Sophia Filipou and Mrs Stephani Hadjievagorou (working in anticancer screenings) and Mr Konstantinos Mrs Sykallos and Mrs Vasiliki Vasileiou (working in toxicological screenings in zebrafish larvae). At the same time, we thank and appreciate the work of leaving interns Mrs Aigli Kosti, Mrs Persefoni Panayi and Mr Andreas Menoikou and wish them all the best to the rest of their academic careers. Hip Hip hooray! 

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"..I will use treatment to help the sick according to my ability and judgment, but never with a view to injury and wrong-doing. Neither will I administer a poison to anybody when asked to do so, nor will I suggest such a course. (..). But I will keep pure and holy both my life and my art. I will not use the knife, not even, verily, on sufferers from stone but I will give place to such as are craftsmen therein.."                          
​​Hippocratic Oath, 5th cent. BC, Ancient Greece

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