Nick Christodoulides, PhD

Originally from the island of Cyprus and, since 2002, a US citizen, Dr. Nicolaos Christodoulides serves as a Principal Investigator and is responsible for the grant submission processes in OraLiva. He holds a B.Sc. in Microbiology (University of Iowa), a M.Sc. in Biology (Texas State University) and Ph.D. in Immunology (The University of Texas at Austin). In 2,000, upon completion of his post-doctoral training at Baylor College of Medicine on cardiovascular disease and shear stress-induced platelet aggregation, Dr. Christodoulides joined the McDevitt research group as a Senior Scientist, where he has been contributing his expertise on antibodies, immunoassays and cardiovascular disease in the development of point-of-care, bead-based as well as membrane-based assay platforms, for soluble or particulate analytes.

As a co-inventor of the universal assay platform and director of immunoassay development in the McDevitt Lab, he has displayed a strong track record for the development of multiplexed and multi-class (cellular, proteomic) tests, implementable on a self-contained, single-use microfluidic assay cartridge, embedded with detection reagents, buffers and preservatives, functioning in conjunction with a portable universal analyzer.

Under his leadership, >30 lab on a chip tests have been developed within the context of a milieu of diagnostic applications for cancer, cardiovascular disease, saliva-based diagnostics, infectious diseases, drugs of abuse detection and cell imaging systems applications. Dr. Christodoulides has also been intimately involved in design and execution of large, multi-site international clinical studies(sponsored by the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (NIDCR) division of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Cancer Prevention Research Institute of Texas (CPRIT), the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the United Kingdom’s Home Office Centre of Science and Technology).

Aimed towards clinical validation, these studies contributed to the recognition of this powerful platform, voted as “Best of What's New Award” in the Medical Device Category for 2008 by Popular Science, as well as for the “Best Scientific Advances Award” in 1998 by the Science Coalition. The afore-mentioned trials resulted in the collection of unique databases laying the foundation for the efficient collection of first-in-kind wellness and disease signatures for the areas of adjunctive oral cancer tests, tests for drugs of abuse, as well as in testing for cardiac wellness profiles. More recently, he helped the group identify biomarker candidates for the COVID-19 severity score. If customers can’t find it, it doesn’t exist.