Nikolaos P. Daskalakis, MD, PhD
Professor of Pharmacology, Physiology & Biophysics and Director, Neurogenomics and Translational Bioinformatics Laboratory (NG-TBL)
Biography
Dr. Nikolaos P. Daskalakis is a Professor in the Department of Pharmacology, Physiology & Biophysics at the Boston University School of Medicine, where he directs the Neurogenomics and Translational Bioinformatics Laboratory (NG-TBL). He is an associate member of the Broad Institute and an affiliate of the BU Hariri Institute for Computing and Computational Science & Engineering, the VA National Center for PTSD, and the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. After nine years of faculty service, he also remains affiliated with McLean Hospital and Harvard Medical School as a Lecturer on Psychiatry.
Dr. Daskalakis received his MD with honors from the University of Athens and his PhD in neuropsychopharmacology from Leiden University. He completed postdoctoral research fellowships in clinical neuroendocrinology at Leiden University Medical Center and in systems biology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.
He leads the Systems Biology Working Group of the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium for PTSD and the PsychENCODE Consortium PTSD BrainOmics Project. He serves as an associate-editor/guest-editor for Biological Psychiatry, Brain Sciences, multiple Frontiers journals (Behavioral Neuroscience, Endocrinology, Neuroscience, Psychiatry), and Neurobiology of Stress.
Research Interests
The Daskalakis Neurogenomics and Translational Bioinformatics Laboratory (NG-TBL) investigates the molecular, cellular, and genomic pathways linking stress to brain function and dysfunction. NG-TBL uses functional genomics to dissect epigenetic mechanisms, cell-type-specific regulatory elements, and risk loci that contribute to stress-related mental disorders such as PTSD. Translational studies using cell-based and animal models further validate causal genes and variants emerging from human genomics. The laboratory also employs large-scale datasets and machine-learning approaches to map genotype-to-phenotype relationships in complex neuropsychiatric traits, with the goal of understanding individual differences in symptom expression and vulnerability. NG-TBL’s overarching mission is to identify novel mechanisms and therapeutic targets for stress-related mental disorders.