Dr. Eleftheria Charalambous, BSc, MSc, Ph.D.

Postdoctoral Fellow – Systems Bioinformatics Unit

Eleftheria holds a B.Sc. (Hons) in Biomedical Sciences, an M.Sc. in Immunology and Immunotherapy with a focus on neuroimmunology, and a Ph.D. in Biology with an emphasis on the microbiome and the utilization and integration of metagenomic data with other omic and psychophysiological measurements. She is currently also working as a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy at the University Medicine Greifswald.

Her current research focuses on investigating the impact of the gut-brain axis concept on psychiatric phenotypes, brain aging, and, in particular, microbial pathogenesis in neurodegenerative diseases.

Research Interests: Eleftheria’s research revolves around microbe-host interactions, including the gut-brain and oral-brain axis, within the context of immune aging, brain aging, the HPA axis, and neurodegeneration. She specializes in developing data generation and integration pipelines, as well as designing and applying statistical and computational methods for multi-omic and high-dimensional data analysis.

Selected Publications:

• Onisiforou, A., Charalambous, E., Zanos, P. Shattering the Amyloid Illusion: The Microbial Enigma of Alzheimer’s Disease Pathogenesis—From Gut Microbiota and Viruses to Brain Biofilms. Microorganisms. 2025, 13(1), 90. https://doi.org/10.3390/microorganisms13010090
• Charalambous, E., The Oral Microbiome In The Scope of Early Life Adversity, Doctoral Thesis, University of Luxembourg, OrbiLu 2023. http://hdl.handle.net/10993/55800.
• Charalambous, E.; Mériaux, S.B.; Guebels, P.; Muller, C.P.; Leenen, F.A.D.; Elwenspoek, M.M.C.; Thiele, I.; Hertel, J.; Turner, J.D. Early-Life Adversity Leaves Its Imprint on the Oral Microbiome for More Than 20 Years and Is Associated with Long-Term Immune Changes. Int. J. Mol. Sci. 2021, 22, 12682.  https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms222312682.
• Holuka, C.; Merz, M.P.; Fernandes, S.B.; Charalambous, E.; Seal, S.V.; Grova, N.; Turner, J.D. The COVID-19 Pandemic: Does Our Early Life Environment, Life Trajectory and Socioeconomic Status Determine Disease Susceptibility and Severity? Int. J. Mol. Sci. 2020, 21, 5094. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms21145094.

Contact info:

E-mail: charalambous.eleftheria@ucy.ac.cy 

ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5755-0375