Leondios G. Kostrikis
 | Certain historical revisions of this page may meet criterion RD1 for revision deletion, as they contain significant copyright violations of https://www.kostrikislab.com/people/head-of-the-lab/ (Copyvios report) that have been removed in the meantime.
Note to admins: In case of doubt, remove this template and post a message asking for review at WT:CP. With this script, go to the history with auto-selected revisions. Note to the requestor: Make sure the page has already been reverted to a non-infringing revision or that infringing text has been removed or replaced before submitting this request. This template is reserved for obvious cases only, for other cases refer to Wikipedia:Copyright problems. Note to others: Please do not remove this template until an administrator has reviewed it. |
Leondios G. Kostrikis | |
|---|---|
| Nationality | Cypriot |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Biochemistry |
| Institutions | University of Cyprus |
Leondios G. Kostrikis (born 1963) is a Molecular Virologist from Cyprus, a Professor of Molecular Virology at the University of Cyprus and a Founding Member of the Cypriot Academy of Sciences, Letters, and Arts. In 2022, he attracted media attention with the news of having found a "Deltacron" Coronavirus variant, a recombinant between Delta and Omicron strains. The emergence of this phenomenon initially evoked skepticism, characterized by concerns primarily centered around contamination or coinfection as plausible etiological contributors. These hypotheses were predominantly disseminated through unsubstantiated assertions within the realms of social and mass media, lacking concurrent scientific evidence to validate their claims. Comparable observations on a global scale dispelled doubt, eventually leading to the recognition of Delta-Omicron variants by the scientific community and their subsequent monitoring by the World Health Organization (WHO).
Early life and education
[edit]Kostrikis was born in Cyprus.[1] He received his scientific education in biochemistry from New York University. In 1987, he received his B.Sc. degree, supported by a Fulbright Scholarship. In 1993, he received his Ph.D.[1]
Career
[edit]He moved to Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center (ADARC) to do HIV research. In 1999, he was appointed Assistant Professor of Rockefeller University.[1] In 2003, he returned to Cyprus. He became Head of Laboratory of Biotechnology and Molecular Virology and Professor of Biological Sciences at the University of Cyprus.[1]
SARS-CoV-2 Deltacron hybrid variant
[edit]Following the emergence of COVID-19 Omicron variant, Kostrikis announced in January 2022 in local TV[2] that his Cypriot health research team in Nicosia had found a new COVID-19 variant dubbing it "Deltacron".[3] Following the initial announcement, indiscriminate news of the COVID-19 hybrid variant dubbed "Deltacron" spread quickly in mainstream media.[4][5] [6] [7]
Maria Van Kerkhove (head of W.H.O.'s COVID-19 Technical Leader), Richard Neher (head of Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology and associate professor of University of Basel), and other scientists, challenged this announcement, saying a lab mistake was a more probable explanation for Cyprus lab's finding, although they did not provide any experimental data refuting the finding.[8]. Initially, some journalists have argued, without providing any experimental data, that it is most likely the result of a lab contamination, which purportedly shares specific properties with two different strains.[9][10] Kostrikis' team has published a peer-reviewed study, providing experimental data that confirms the original observation about Deltacron was correct Unraveling the Dynamics of Omicron (BA.1, BA.2, and BA.5) Waves and Emergence of the Deltacton Variant: Genomic Epidemiology of the SARS-CoV-2 Epidemic in Cyprus (Oct 2021-Oct 2022)
References
[edit]- ^ a b c d "Leondios G. Kostrikis, Ph.D." Retrieved 2022-01-11.
- ^ Dr. Christian Kretschmer (Arzt) (31 January 2022). "Supervariante Deltakron gibt es nicht – Fehler durch Kontamination". Gelbe Liste (in German).
- ^ Georgiou, Georgios (January 8, 2022). "Cyprus Finds Covid-19 Infections That Combine Delta and Omicron". Bloomberg News. Retrieved March 14, 2022.
- ^ Lee, Bruce Y. (March 12, 2022). "New 'Deltacron' Covid-19 Coronavirus Variant Is A Recombinant Of Delta And Omicron". Forbes. Retrieved March 14, 2022.
- ^ Snider, Mike (March 10, 2022). "There may be a new COVID variant, Deltacron. Here's what we know about it". USA Today. Retrieved March 14, 2022.
- ^ Khan, Amir (January 17, 2022). "'Deltacron': Should we worry about new COVID-19 variants merging?". Al Jazeera. Retrieved March 14, 2022.
- ^ Zimmer, Carl (March 11, 2022). "New 'Deltacron' Variant Is Rare and Similar to Omicron, Experts Say". The New York Times. Retrieved March 14, 2022.
- ^ Kreier, Freda (January 21, 2022). "Deltacron: the story of the variant that wasn't". Nature. Retrieved March 14, 2022.
- ^ Lapid, Nancy (March 9, 2022). "Variant that combines Delta and Omicron identified; dogs sniff out virus with high accuracy". Reuters. Retrieved March 14, 2022.
- ^ Gubernator, Sebastian (2022-01-10). "Experten halten angeblichen "Demikron"-Nachweis für Laborfehler" (in German). Die Welt, cited via MSN. Retrieved 2022-01-11. Translation: Experts say the "Demikron" finding is a lab mistake