Dr. Grigoris Zoidis is an Associate Professor at the Department of Pharmacy, Division of Pharmaceutical Chemistry of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (NKUA).
He obtained the Pharmacy degree, M.Sc. and the Ph.D. degrees with honors in pharmaceutical/medicinal chemistry from the Faculty of Pharmacy, Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry, NKUA, Greece, in 2000, 2002 and 2006, respectively. During this period he received awards-fellowships from the Greek State Scholarship Foundation and trained in Zurich (ETH-2001) in multidimensional NMR techniques. In 2012 he received the Young Investigator award (researcher under 40) from the Association of Greek Chemists and was the Greek representative at the 4th European Association for Chemical and Molecular Sciences (EuCheMS) Young Investigator Workshop in Vienna (23-25 of August, 2012). After postdoctoral research as an EU fellow (CANCER GRID project) at the Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry, University of Bari, Italy, and a year of postdoctoral research as an EU fellow in the field of: Natural Product Synthesis (Faculty of Pharmacy, Department of Pharmacognosy and Natural Product Chemistry, NKUA), since January of 2012, Dr. Grigoris Zoidis has been pursuing his independent career at the Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry, NKUA. His current interests include medicinal and organic chemistry, specifically, design and synthesis of compounds with antiviral, trypanocidal, anticancer and CNS activity.
His work has been on the general theme of design, synthesis and development of new drugs for infectious diseases and cancer.
Particular current interests are:
Strategy, design and execution
Lead optimization employing sophisticated SAR tools and structure based drug design principles
Targeted libraries or singletons
Pharmaceutical properties optimization
Lead compound scale-up
Academic Qualifications
2006
Ph.D. in Pharmaceutical Chemistry, Dept. of Pharmacy, University of Athens
2002
M.Sc. in Pharmaceutical Chemistry, Pharmacy Department, University of Athens
2000
B.Sc. in Pharmacy, Dept. of Pharmacy, University of Athens
Distinctions
2022
1st poster award in Medicinal Chemistry at the 19th Hellenic Symposium on Medicinal Chemistry (HSMC-19) Patras on March 9-11, 2023.
2019
1st poster award at the EFMC International Symposium on Advances in Synthetic and Medicinal Chemistry 2019 (EFMC-ASMC'19) September 1-5, 2019, Athens, Greece.
2019
1st poster award in Medicinal Chemistry at the 11th Joint Meeting on Medicinal Chemistry 2019 (under the auspices of the European Federation for Medicinal Chemistry) in June 27-30, 2019 in Prague, Czech Republic.
2019
1st poster award in Medicinal Chemistry at the 32nd International Conference on Antiviral Research (ICAR), hosted by the International Society for Antiviral Research (ISAR) (Baltimore, USA, May 2019).
2017
1st poster award in Medicinal Chemistry at the 17th Hellenic Symposium on Medicinal Chemistry (HSMC-17) (Thessaloniki June 2017).
2016
Selected from MedChemComm (RSC), the official journal of the European Federation for Medicinal Chemistry, to publish a research paper in the special issue entitled: "New Talent: Europe", which highlights the excellent work being carried out by younger members of the research community (independent researchers within 12 years of completing their PhD). Our article was acknowledged and included to the 2016 MedChemComm Hot Articles collection highlighted by the reviewers as being particularly interesting and particularly significant research and also as a Front Page Cover Article.
2016
Travel Grants for participation in XXIV EFMC International Symposium on Medicinal Chemistry (Manchester, 2016) and 29th International Conference on Antiviral Research (San Diego, 2016).
2014
1st poster award in Medicinal Chemistry, 1st Int. Congress from Drug Discovery to Drug delivery 11-2014.
2013
1st poster award in Medicinal Chemistry, 16th PanHellenic Congress of Pharmaceutical Sciences.
2012
Young Investigator award (researcher under 40) from the Association of Greek Chemists. Greek representative at the 4th European Association for Chemical and Molecular Sciences (EuCheMS) Young Investigator Workshop in Vienna (23-25 of August, 2012). More
2012
1st poster award in Medicinal Chemistry at the 1st Congress of Pharmaceutical Sciences.
2010
Bioorganic & Medicinal Chemistry Letters most cited articles 2003-2010 award for the paper entitled: "Design and synthesis of bioactive adamantane spiro heterocycles" (Bioorganic & Medicinal Chemistry Letters (2007), 17, 15, 4358-4362).
2007 2008
State Scholarships Foundation, fellowship for post-Doc research, after research proposal evaluation (duration 12 months).
2003 2006
State Scholarships Foundation, 1st in written exams (duration 42 months).
2004
Fellowship to participate to the following ESMEC edition in Urbino on July 3-7, 2005 (poster selected for oral presentation).
2000 2002
State Scholarships Foundation, post-graduate academic performance (1st in Faculty).
1996 1998
State Scholarships Foundation, undergraduate academic performance.
Appointments
Since Nov 2019
Associate Professor, Dept. of Pharmacy, Division of Pharmaceutical Chemistry, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens
Since Oct 2018
Tenured Assistant Professor, Dept. of Pharmacy, University of Athens
Since Jul 2014
Assistant Professor, Dept. of Pharmacy, University of Athens
Since Jan 2012
Lecturer, Dept. of Pharmacy, University of Athens
Oct 2010 Dec 2011
Post-Doc fellow in the field of: Natural Product Synthesis (Faculty of Pharmacy, Dept. of Pharmacognosy and Natural Product Chemistry, University of Athens, GR) under the supervision of Professor Leandros Skaltsounis
Feb 2009 Apr 2010
Post-Doc fellow in the field of: Pharmaceutical Chemistry (Faculty of Pharmacy, Dept. of Pharmaceutical Chemistry, University of Bari, IT) under the supervision of Professor Angelo Carotti
Oct 2006 Feb 2009
Lecturer (contracts were renewed every academic year) and post-Doc fellow in the field of: Pharmaceutical Chemistry (Faculty of Pharmacy, Dept. of Pharmaceutical Chemistry, University of Athens, GR) under the supervision of Professor George Fytas
Teaching Activities
Postgraduate level
Advanced Medicinal Chemistry I, 1st semester
Strategies for Organic Drug Synthesis and Design
Undergraduate level
Pharmaceutical Chemistry III
"Drug synthesis lab" exercises tutoring
Research Interests and Activities (last 10 years)
Design and synthesis of anti-viral agents (HBV, Influenza-A, HIV, HCV, Dengue virus - DENV, Yellow fever virus - YFV and Zika virus - ZIKV)
Design and synthesis of antiparasitic agents
Design and synthesis of compounds with activity at the CNS and anticancer activity
Development of synthetic strategies in Organic Chemistry
Scientific Publications/Citations
More than 1300 citations. (H-index 20)
60 publications in refereed journals
100 refereed conference publications
10 Invited papers in international journal
Author of 3 books
Top five publications
J. Hamdy; N. Emadeldin; M.M. Hamed; E. Frakolaki; S. Katsamakas; N. Vassilaki; G. Zoidis; A.K.H. Hirsch; M. Abdel-Halim; A.H. Abadi, Design and Synthesis of Novel Bis-Imidazolyl Phenyl Butadiyne Derivatives as HCV NS5A Inhibitors. Pharmaceuticals, (2022), 2022, 15(5), 632. More
G. Zoidis, E Kritsi, P Lecinska, M Ivanov, P Zoumpoulakis, M Sokovic, Catto, M., The triazole ring as a privileged scaffold for putative antifungals: Synthesis and evaluation of a series of new analogues, ChemMedChem, (2021), 16 (1), 134-144. More
Mennatallah Abdallah, Mostafa M Hamed, Efseveia Frakolaki, Sotirios Katsamakas, Niki Vassilaki, Ralf Bartenschlager, Grigoris Zoidis, Anna KH Hirsch, Mohammad Abdel-Halim, Ashraf H Abadi, Redesigning of the cap conformation and symmetry of the diphenylethyne core to yield highly potent pan-genotypic NS5A inhibitors with high potency and high resistance barrier, (2022) European Journal of Medicinal Chemistry, 229, 114034. More
Zoidis, G., Kolocouris, N., Kelly, J.M., Prathalingam, S.R., Naesens, L., De Clercq, E. "Design and synthesis of bioactive adamantanaminoalcohols and adamantanamines" European Journal of Medicinal Chemistry (2010) 45 (11), 5022-5030.
Fytas, C.; Zoidis, G.; Tzoutzas, N.; Taylor, M. C.; Fytas, G.; Kelly, J. M. "Novel Lipophilic Acetohydroxamic Acid Derivatives Based on Conformationally Constrained Spiro Carbocyclic 2,6-Diketopiperazine Scaffolds with Potent Trypanocidal Activity" J. Med. Chem. (2011) 54 (14), 5250-5254.
Other Activities
2021: Topical Advisory Panel of 'Viruses' MDPI. More
Member of the International Advisory Board of ChemMedChem (Wiley). More
Member of two scientific committees of National Organization for Medicines.
Tutor of postgraduate and undergraduate students.
Member of the Editorial Board of Journal of Chemistry. More
"CANCERGRID - Grid aided computer system for rapid anti-cancer drug design".
Programme, FP6-2005-LIFESCIHEALTH-7, (2007-01-01 until 2010-06-30). (Member of the main research team).
"AgroCos - From Biodiversity to Chemodiversity: Novel Plant Produced Compounds with Agrochemical and Cosmetic interest". Programme FP7-KBBE-2009-3, Collaborative project, 2010-2014. (Member of the main research team).
"The effects of antioxidant's dietary supplementation on animal product quality". Programme THALIS 2012-2015, SECTORAL OPERATIONAL PROGRAMME, EDUCATION AND LIFELONG LEARNING-ESPA 2007-2013. (Participating Researcher).
"Development of new selective estrogen receptor modulators for preventing menopause consequences". Programme THALIS 2012-2015, SECTORAL OPERATIONAL PROGRAMME, EDUCATION AND LIFELONG LEARNING-ESPA 2007-2013. (Member of the main research team).
