Maria Mavrikaki, PhD

Maria Mavrikaki is an Assistant Professor of Pathology at Harvard Medical School and a Principal Investigator at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC). She studied Neuroscience and Psychology at the University of Crete in Greece, EU, from 2003 to 2011. She completed a postdoctoral research fellowship at The Scripps Research Institute, Scripps Florida (Butler Lab) from 2012 to 2014, where she used genetic mouse models to demonstrate a role for the Melanocortin-3 receptor (Mc3r) in food motivation. She then pursued a postdoctoral fellowship and instructorship at McLean Hospital, Harvard Medical School (Chartoff Laboratory) from 2014 to 2019, where she studied neurobiological mechanisms of opioid addiction and demonstrated a role for microRNAs in opioid addiction-like and stress-related behaviors. She joined BIDMC in 2019 as an Instructor in Dr. Slack's Laboratory, where she initiated studies showing that severe COVID-19 is associated with accelerated brain aging. In September 2023, she was awarded an independent R01 grant from the National Institute on Aging (NIA) to study molecular mechanisms underlying brain aging and accelerated brain aging. The ultimate goal of her ongoing research is to identify therapeutics to delay or reverse brain aging, as well as to develop treatments for Opioid Use Disorder (OUD).

Dr. Mavrikaki enjoys spending her free time with her loved ones and has a passion for cooking, hiking, traveling, and discovering new experiences and places.