Rate My Professor Nikolas Nikolaidis

Nikolas Nikolaidis is a Professor of Biological Science at California State University, Fullerton. He earned his Ph.D. and B.Sc. from Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece. His research interests encompass comparative genomics, bioinformatics, phylogenetics, molecular evolution, and the biochemistry of proteins involved in the innate and adaptive immune systems and stress response. In the Nikolaidis laboratory, studies aim to understand the evolutionary and molecular mechanisms of the cellular stress response and cancer by examining 70-kDa heat shock proteins, lipids, and cellular membranes. This research is funded by grants from the National Institutes of Health, which support investigations into novel lipid-protein interactions and alterations in lipid metabolism within stressed and cancerous systems.

Professor Nikolaidis instructs courses in Genetics and Molecular Biology as well as Bioinformatics. Key publications include Das S, M Hirano, R Tako, C McCallister, N Nikolaidis. "Evolutionary Genomics of Immunoglobulin-Encoding Loci in Vertebrates." Current Genomics 13: 95-102 (2012); Das S, M Hirano, C McCallister, R Tako, N Nikolaidis. "Comparative genomics and evolution of the immunoglobulin-encoding loci in tetrapods." Advances in Immunology 111:143-178 (2011); Georgelis N, A Tabuchi, N Nikolaidis, DJ Cosgrove. "Structure-function analysis of the bacterial expansin EXLX1." Journal of Biological Chemistry 286:16814-16823 (2011); Das S, N Nikolaidis, H Goto, C McCallister, J Li, M Hirano, MD Cooper. "Comparative genomics and evolution of the alpha-defensin multigene family in primates." Molecular Biology and Evolution 27:2333-2343 (2010); and Das S, U Mohamedy, M Hirano, M Nei, N Nikolaidis. "Analysis of immunoglobulin light chain genes in Zebra finch: Genomic and evolutionary implications." Molecular Biology and Evolution 27:113-120 (2010). He received the Outstanding Untenured Faculty Member Award from the Department of Biological Science in academic year 2012-2013. As Director of Project EAGER, an NIH-funded genomics training program, and a faculty mentor in the U-RISE program, he guides undergraduate research. He presented the public lecture “The Lessons 500,000 Human Genome Sequences Taught Us” at the Pollak Library in September 2019 and chairs the Institutional Biosafety Committee.