Panayiotou, Andrie G.
Παναγιώτου, Άντρη
Dr. Panayiotou is an epidemiologist with interests in the epidemiology of cardiovascular disease. Her work focuses on identifying risk factors and biomarkers which can be used to better identify individuals with pre-clinical atherosclerosis. The identification and early treatment of such individuals is essential to the success of efforts to reduce the impact of ischemic heart disease on mortality and morbidity in Cyprus. Since joining CII in 2011, Dr. Panayiotou has established the Cardiovascular Epidemiology and Genetics Research Laboratory (http://cveglab.cut.ac.cy). She is coordinating a population study in Cyprus, which contributes data to several European and international research consortia. This collaboration has enabled the Cypriot population to be included in important ongoing studies of cardiovascular disease and has resulted in scientific publications in several high impact journals such as Circulation and the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. Using data from Cyprus, Dr. Panayiotou has found evidence of shorter average telomere length (a marker of biologic aging in cells) among Cypriots than among other European populations studied. This finding confirms the more general result that populations in Southern Europe (e.g., Italy) have shorter average telomere length than populations in Northern Europe (e.g., Belgium), despite having longer life expectancies.