Leondios G. Kostrikis

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
Kostrikis was born in Cyprus. 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.

Career
He moved to Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center (ADARC) to do HIV research. In 1999, he was appointed Assistant Professor of Rockefeller University. 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.

SARS-CoV-2 Deltacron hybrid variant
Following the emergence of COVID-19 Omicron variant, Kostrikis announced in January 2022 in local TV that his Cypriot health research team in Nicosia had found a new COVID-19 variant dubbing it "Deltacron". Following the initial announcement, indiscriminate news of the COVID-19 hybrid variant dubbed "Deltacron" spread quickly in mainstream media.

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. . 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. 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)