Professor Lefteris Zacharia

Dr Lefteris Zacharia is a Professor of Pharmacology at the University of Nicosia. He holds a BSc in Biochemistry from Denison University, Granville, OH, USA (1998), a PhD in Pharmacology from the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine (2002), and a Master in Business Administration (MBA) from Katz Graduate School of Business, University of Pittsburgh, USA (2007). After completing his PhD thesis, which focused on cardiovascular Pharmacology, he conducted a post-doctoral training in the same laboratory working on drug development project (2002-2004). Soon after, he was offered the position of Research Instructor and Director of the analytical lab at the Center for Clinical Pharmacology, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine (2004-2006), where he also served as Adjunct Assistant Professor until 2015. His responsibilities included teaching Molecular Pharmacology to graduate students, performing in vitro and in vivo research in cardiovascular diseases, and participating in departmental pharmacogenetics projects, and industry-sponsored drug development projects.

In 2006 he was hired as the Managing Director of a contract research organization company in Greece (BioMedCode Hellas SA) providing pre-clinical drug evaluation services using transgenic mouse models of disease. At this post, he interacted with a number of major pharmaceutical companies that tested their biologic or small molecule therapeutics in animal models. In 2009 he was offered the position of Head of R&D in a veterinary company (VetHellas), where he liaised with medical authorities on regulatory affairs issues and prepared pharmaceutical registration dossiers for marketing authorization. Moreover, during that time he also consulted with a chemoinformatics company (Novamechanics) and acted as a collaborating researcher at the Centre for Research and Technology-Hellas (CE.R.T.H).

Since 2014, he has returned to academia as an Assistant professor at the University of Nicosia, Pharmacy program, in Cyprus. At the University of Nicosia, he teaches Pharmacology and Therapeutics, and Molecular Pharmacology to pharmacy students. In addition, he serves as the course coordinator for the biological courses of the pharmacy program, and he is a member of the ethics committee of the University.

Dr Zacharia has an excellent publication record with 42 peer-reviewed original scientific articles, which have received over 1400 citations and an h index of 24, and he has participated in a number of European Union grants as principal investigator, and in NIH grants as a co-investigator.

His research interest is in Estradiol metabolite biology in Alzheimer’s disease and pre-eclampsia, while work also focuses on inflammation resolution in cancer and cardiovascular diseases.

His education and background combines academic and industry experience in pharmacology, drug development, pharmaceutics and regulatory affairs, and includes management, administration, teaching and research.