Lab Head

         Every academic & scientist should have a mission to inspire students, motivate trainees, support mentors and challenge peers.

Dr Nikolas Dietis,  BSc, BSc(Hons), MRes, Ph.D
​​Assistant Professor of Pharmacology, Medical School, University of Cyprus

Dr Dietis' has completed all his basic training in the UK (BSc Pharmacology - Univ of Portsmouth, BSc Neuropharmacology - Nottingham Trent Univ, MRes Applied Biosciences - Nottingham Trent Univ) and earned his PhD in Pharmacology from the Univ of Leicester (UK) for his research in the pharmacology of novel bifunctional opioids as potential analgesic drugs against cancer pain. Before joining UCY in 2015, he worked as a Lecturer in Pharmacological Sciences at the University of Tasmania (Australia), researching opioid pharmacology in rodent models of chronic pain and depression..
His current research interests revolve around drug discovery & repurposing using target-based and disease-oriented high-throughput screenings against cellular and behavioural assays for cancer & neurological diseases. He has received four research awards, including the Best Paper Award at the prestigious GLOBECOM 2020 Congress for his contributory work on the role of growing bio-nanomachine networks in glioblastoma evolution and progression.  

Dr Dietis is a Registered Expert at the European Commission in the field of Pharmacology (Reg: EX2022D543045), a certified Research Evaluator of the General Secretariat for Research and Innovation in Greece (Reg: 17609, ID: 68268), an appointed Examiner of the Cyprus State Scholarship Foundation (ID: I.K.Y.K.1.1.04.1/V), an appointed Independent Evaluator at the Council of Recognition of Higher Qualifications (KYSATS; ID: 7.9.05.14) and a registered Speaker at the Young Universities for the Future of Europe (YUFE) alliance.

Dr Dietis has and has been a strong advocate for innovation in Medical Education. He has received 3 Teaching Excellence Awards from the University of Tasmania, he is a certified Quality Reviewer of Online Courses by the Quality Matters in USA and a member of the Technology Enhanced Learning Special Interest Group at the prestigious Association for the Study of Medical Education.
At UCY, Dr Dietis teaches Pharmacology at the undergraduate MD program and Pharmacogenomics at the Masters in Precision Medicine program, He has been a member of the UCY Center for Teaching & Learning for 6 years and is currently serving as a member of the Medical School's Quality Assurance & Continuous Improvement Committee, and a member of the UCY Quality Assurance Committee.

In 2016, Dr Dietis founded the Experimental Pharmacology Laboratory at the UCY Medical School as the first pharmacology research laboratory in Cyprus, with the aim to focus on drug repurposing. Under the umbrella of the Lab's activities, in 2018 he founded the first Zebrafish laboratory in Cyprus, with the aim to apply toxicological, behavioural and translational assays of drug profiling & phenotyping against human disease models.

Current Lab Members

---- (at)ucy.ac.cy

New Member
​Post-Doctoral Scientist

A new member will be joining our lab soon!

nikouli.sofia(at)ucy.ac.cy
hadjisavva.rania(at)cy.ac.cy

Dr Rania Hadjisavva & Dr Sofia Nikouli 
​Post-Doctoral Researchers of BiobankCY - in collaboration with EPL

Dr Hadjisavva and Dr Nikouli joined the BiobankCY under a forming collaboration with our zebrafish lab in 2022. They are both experienced researchers in genomics and molecular biology. Dr Rania Hadjisavva holds a PhD in Biomedical Sciences from the University of Cyprus and 9 years of research experience in molecular biology and advanced bioimaging modalities and optogenetic techniques. Skilled in Xenopus laevis experimental model and holds a FELASA-recognized certificate by IZMC for zebrafish use in research. Dr Sofia Nikouli is an experienced molecular biologist on cardiac stem cells and stem cell-based therapies for cardiovascular diseases. She holds a PhD in Molecular Medicine from the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece. She has strong experience with various molecular techniques like flow cytometry and gene editing. Their  current research  in  the zebrafish lab 

focuses on using zebrafish to validate the pathogenicity of suspected VUS in Cypriot patients with cardiomyopathies and kidney disease. Their aim is to develop transgenic zebrafish with human mutations via CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing to study potential pathogenic effects and mechanisms for targeted therapies.

chrysostomou.mikaella(at)ucy.ac.cy
kitiri.mikaella(at)ucy.ac.cy

Mikaella Chrysostomou & Ms Mikaella Kitiri
​UCY MD students - Research Associates

Ms Chrysostomou and Ms Kitiri are both MD students at the UCY Medical School. They have been MD Interns in the Experimental Pharmacology Lab between 2020-2022. They are now Research Associates working on a project funded by the University of Cyprus, on cancer patients for a pain biomarker. Through their involvement  in the establishment of the project, they co-founded a company which received the "Business Idea Award" at the Cyprus Entrepreneurship Competition of the 7th Innovation and Entrepreneurship Forum, the "Rectors’ Honorary Award" at the Business & Entrepreneurship Competition; Student Innovators 2022 organized by the Center for Entrepreneurship of the University of Cyprus and was advocated at the Beyond Pre-Accelerator Program of the Junior Achievements Cyprus.

schallou(at)auth.gr

Sofia Challouma
​MSc student, Aristotle University - in collaboration with EPL

Sofia has graduated with a BSc in Chemistry from Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in 2015 and holds a postgraduate diploma in the Didactics of Biosciences by the Democritus University of Thrace, Greece. She is currently an MSc student Clinical and Industrial Pharmacology - Clinical Toxicology at Aristotle University and is completing her thesis research project in our lab, working on the toxicological profiling of cardiovascular drugs in zebrafish larvae, with Dr Dietis as her primary supervisor and Dr Eleni Gkika from AUTH as a complimentary supervisor.

kourouna.nefeli(at)ucy.ac.cy

Nefeli Kourouna
​BSc student - Department of Biology, ICY

Nefeli is a final year BSc student at the Department of Biology at UCY. She has attended an Erasmus program at the University of Ioannina (Greece) and has participated in practical training at the Histopathology Department of the German Oncology Center (Cyprus). Nefeli has joined our Lab in 2023 for her final-year thesis, working on the toxicological profiling of cardiovascular clinical drugs in zebrafish larvae. She will be working with Sofia Challouma as a team, with the aim to chraracterise the toxicological profile of various cardiovascular-active drugs in zebrafish, in order to be able to test them safely for their potential therapeutic effects against zebrafish cardiovascular pathology.

glytsi.maria(at)ucy.ac.cy

Maria Glytsi
​BSc student - Department of Biology, UCY

Maria is a final year BSc student at the Department of Biology at UCY. She is the recipient of The Faculty of Pure and Applied Sciences Scholarship for Greek students, as the student with the highest achieved GPA in the Faculty. Maria has joined our lab in 2023 for her final-year thesis, working on the cancer pain biomarker project, along with Mikaella Chrysostomou and Mikaella Kitiri. Maria's work will be focusing on the characterisation of opiorphin's toxicological profile as well as the optimization of its detection in saliva using commercial ELISA assays. Maria will also be able to participate in the collection of cancer patients' saliva samples and its subsequent opiorphin analysis.

Michael Spyrou
(UCY MD Intern, 3rd year student)

Project Title: Novel inhibitors of BACE1 enzyme

Michalis is an MD student, completing his second research project in our lab. He is working on the characterisation of the inhibitory effects of clomiphene and PIK-90 against the BACE1 enzyme, based on previous collaborative work from our lab and the Bioinformatics Group at the Cyprus Institute of Neurology & Genetics. BACE1 enzyme is required for the generation of all monomeric forms of amyloid-b (Ab), including Ab42, which aggregates into bioactive conformational species and likely initiates toxicity in Alzheimer's disease.

Konstantinos Michaelides
(UCY MD Intern, 3rd year student)

Project Title: Brain cancer xenograft model in zebrafish

Konstantinos is an MD student, and this is his second year in our zebrafish lab. He is working on setting up and studying a human brain cancer (glioblastoma) xenograft model in zebrafish. He will be working as a team with our post-doctoral scientist on this demanding model in order to be able to study the brain cancer pathology in zebrafish, the cancer cell behaviour in the zebrafish body and potentially look at anticancer efficacy of drugs. ​ 

Gianna Koumourou
Maria Phiniotou
​
(UCY MD Interns, 2nd year students)

Project Title: Anticancer efficacy of drugs against prostate cancer

Gianna and Maria are MD students working in our lab for a second straight year, with the aim to complete their second research team project. They will be working on the discovery of anticancer efficacy in current clinical drugs (drug repurposing) against prostate cancer. They will screen a number of drugs by characterizing their effect in morphology, viability and metabolic rate in prostate cancer cell lines. Prostate cancer is the second most common cause of death in men in Cyprus, only after cardiovascular disease.

Andreas Panagiotou
​Efrosyni Metaxa
Marios Agathaggelou
(UCY MD Interns, 2nd year students)

Project Title: Antibacterial efficacy of endophyte bacterial extracts

Eleni, Andreas, Kalia, Efrosyni and Marios are MD students working in our lab for a second straight year, with the aim to complete their second research team project. They will be working on a discovery project regarding the characterisation of endophyte bacterial extracts for their potential antibacterial efficacy against human pathogenic bacteria. Endophyte bacteria grow symbiotically inside plants and they secrete chemicals which may intercept the growth of human pathogen growth.

Lab Alumni

​Ms Maria Kouma (MSc graduate 2023)
Ms Charalambia Lazarou (MSc graduate 2022)
Ms Maria Panayiotou (MSc graduate 2022)
Ms Despoina Vangeli (MSc graduate 2021)​
Dr Marios Markoulides (Visiting Scientist - Post Doc 2019-2021)
Ms Chrystalla Pavlou (Lab Manager - Research Assistant 2019-2020)
Dr Marina Demetriades (Research Associate 2018-2019)

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​Maria Roussia (MD Intern 2021-2023)
Giannis Agrimanakis (MD Intern 2021-2023)
Xeni Kosofidou (MD Intern 2021-2023)
Natalia Anastasiou (MD Intern 2021-2023)
Marianna Vitali (MD Intern 2021-2023)
Jumana El Bakri​ (MD Intern 2021-2023)
Adamos Theodorou (MD Intern 2021-2023)
Andriana Hadjigianni (MD Intern 2022-2023)
Michael Temvriotis (MD Intern 2022-2023)
Christos Mastis​ (MD Intern 2022-2023)
​Vasiliki Tzalili (MD Intern 2022-2023)
Stella Gkountinaki (MD Intern 2022-2023)
Konstantinos Mihaelides​ (MD Intern 2022-2023)
​Effrosyni Lambrou​ (MD Intern 2022-2023)
Orestis Germanos (MD Intern 2020-2022)
Irene Filippou (MD Intern 2020-2022)
Mikaella Chrysostomou (MD Intern 2020-2022)
Mikaella Kitiri (MD Intern 2020-2022)
Christina Pasiouli (MD Intern 2019-2021)
Vasiliki Vasileiou (MD Intern 2019-2021)

Marina Evangellou (MD Intern 2019-2021)
Sofia Philippou (MD Intern 2019-2021)
Charalambos Apostolopoulos (MD Intern 2019-2021)
Stephani Hadjievagorou (MD Intern 2019-2021)
Petros Pieri  (MD Intern 2019-2021)
Stephanos Hilides (MD Intern 2019-2021)
Konstantinos Sykallos (MD Intern 2019-2021)
​Nikos Ververides (MD Intern 2018-2020)
Antonis Pilavas (MD Intern 2018-2020)
Egli Kosti (MD Intern 2018-2020)
Melani Theodoridou​ (MD Intern 2018-2020)
Argyris Konstantinou (MD Intern 2018-2020)
Andreas Menoikou (MD Intern 2018-2020)
​Persefoni Panayi (MD Intern 2018-2020)
Eleni Xenophontos (MD Intern 2019-2020)
Chrystalla Souroupi (MD Intern 2016-2017)
Alexandros Georgiou (MD Intern 2016-2017)
Athina Fouli (MD Intern 2016-2017)
Irene Tsappa (MD Intern 2016-2017)