Nickolas Papadopoulos – Candidate for the Nominating Committee of AACR

The voting for the 2025 AACR Annual Election is now open, where members will vote for the next President-Elect, Treasurer, five Board Members, and four members of the Nominating Committee.

This year, Nickolas Papadopoulos, PhD is a candidate for the Nominating Committee of AACR.

Dr. Nickolas Papadopoulos is a Professor of Oncology, Human Genetics, and Pathology at Johns Hopkins University, where he also serves as the Director of Translational Genetics at the Ludwig Center.

He is part of the Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore, Maryland.

Prior to his current position, Dr. Papadopoulos held academic roles at several institutions, including Assistant Professor of Pathology at Presbyterian Hospital, Assistant and Adjunct Assistant Professor at the Institute for Cancer Genetics at Columbia University, and Associate Professor of Oncology at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.

His work focuses on advancing the field of cancer genetics, particularly in the development of genetic-based tools for early detection and personalized cancer treatment.

Dr. Nickolas Papadopoulos’s research interests are centered around cancer biology, genetics, and diagnostics, with a particular focus on the genetic predisposition to hereditary nonpolyposis colon cancer (HNPCC).

He investigates novel mutations in chromatin remodeling genes and their role in various human cancers. A key area of his work is the development of clinical applications for early cancer detection and monitoring, especially through liquid biopsy.

Dr. Papadopoulos is also a leader in the non-invasive detection of multiple types of cancer, including through his pioneering work on CancerSEEK, a diagnostic test designed to detect several cancers at once through a blood sample.

His research aims to transform cancer diagnosis and monitoring, making it more accessible and less invasive.

Dr. Nickolas Papadopoulos has been an active contributor to the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) through various leadership roles and service.

He currently serves as the Co-Editor-in-Chief of Cancer Prevention Research (2024-present) and is a member of the Editorial Board for Cancer Discovery (2023-present), where he also served as a scientific editor from 2020 to 2023.

Dr. Papadopoulos has been involved in several AACR task forces and committees, including the AACR Exploratory IND/Phase 0 Clinical Trials Task Force (2021-present) and the AACR Cancer Progress Report Steering Committee (2019-2020).

He has also been a member of the AACR Team Science Award Committee (2018-2020) and the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network-AACR Career Development Awards Scientific Review Committee (2015-2017).

Throughout his career, Dr. Papadopoulos has received the AACR Team Science Award in multiple years (2013, 2014, 2017) and co-chaired the AACR Special Conference in Cancer Research: Metabolism and Cancer in 2011.

Education

Dr. Nickolas Papadopoulos earned his BS in Biology from Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in Greece in 1985, followed by an MS in Biology from the University of Houston in 1988. He then went on to complete his PhD in Biomedical Sciences at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston in 1992.

Afterward, Dr. Papadopoulos undertook postdoctoral training as a Fogarty Fellow at the National Institutes on Aging, Gerontology Research Center at NIH from 1992 to 1993.

He continued his training at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, where he served as a postdoctoral fellow in oncology from 1993 to 1996 and as a research associate from 1996 to 1997.

Awards and Honors

– Co-founder and Member, Board of Directors, Haystack Oncology Inc. (2021-2023)
– Recipient, The Dr. George N Papanicolau Award, The Hellenic Medical Society (2019)
– Co-founder and Member, Board of Directors, Thrive Inc. (2019-2020)
– Member, Scientific Advisory Board, *Science Translational Medicine* (2018-present)
– Recipient, Director’s Teaching Award in Laboratory-Based Science, Johns Hopkins (2017)
– Lecturer, Annual Lauren T. Erb Lecture, Neuroendocrine Tumor Research Foundation (2017)
– President and Co-founder, PapGene Inc. (2014-2019)
– Consultant, Sysmex-Inostics (2014-2017)

Interviews with Nickolas Papadopoulos

Tomorrows Discoveries: Reducing Cancer Deaths – Nickolas Papadopoulos, Ph.D. – Johns Hopkins Medicine (24th March, 2017)

Liquid biopsies for the detection of precancerous lesions – VJOncology (23rd May, 2022)