Endodontist, PHD candidate
University of California, Los Angeles
Dr. Spyridon Hasiakos is a board-eligible endodontist actively training under the NIH K12 Post-Doctoral Fellowship in pursuit of a dentist-scientist career. Dr. Hasiakos completed his undergraduate studies in his home-city of Chicago, Illinois. After receiving a B.S. at Loyola University of Chicago, he earned his DMD degree at the University of Illinois-Chicago. He developed a passion for clinically translational research during dental school, where he studied dentino-pulpal tissue regeneration under mentorship of Dr. Thomas Diekwisch and Dr. Xianghong Luan. Upon arriving to UCLA, Dr. Hasiakos completed his clinical residency training in endodontics at the School of Dentistry. He is now engaged in full-time scientific training, pursuing a PhD under guidance of Dr. Yousang Gwack in the Physiology Department at the David Geffen School of Medicine. Dr. Hasiakos studies calcium signaling via the ORAI family of proteins as a key regulatory mechanism in T-lymphocyte function. Specifically, his research focus is to better understand the molecular factors that drive pathogenicity of T cells in multiple sclerosis (MS). Dr. Hasiakos aims not only to expose translational therapeutic targets for these patients, but also elucidate mechanisms underlying the association between chronic inflammatory diseases in the oral cavity and other systemic inflammatory conditions.