Vasilis Vasiliou, PhD. | Yale School of Public Health

Vasilis Vasiliou is the Susan Dwight Bliss Professor of Epidemiology and the Chair of the Department of Environmental Health Sciences at Yale School of Public Health. He is also a professor at Yale School of the Environment and Yale School of Medicine. He received his BSc in Chemistry (1983) and PhD in Biochemical Pharmacology (1988) from the University of Ioannina, Greece. He then trained as Fogarty Fellow in molecular toxicology and pharmacogenetics at the College of Medicine of the University of Cincinnati (1991-1995). In 1996, he joined the University of Colorado School of Pharmacy where he rose through the ranks to become Professor and Director of the Toxicology Program. In 2014, he joined the faculty of Yale University in his new position. As Chair he has developed a rather strong Department. Professor Vasiliou has established an internationally-recognized research program that has been continuously funded by NEI/NIH and NIAAA/NIH since 1997, and recently by NIEHS. His research interests include the etiology and molecular mechanisms of environmentally-induced human disease, such as liver disease, obesity & diabetes, cancer, and neurodegenerative diseases. His research focuses on the means by which the exposome (total exposures throughout life), metabolism (specifically aldehyde dehydrogenases and cytochrome P-450s) and antioxidants (glutathione and catalase) contribute to human health and disease. His laboratory utilizes state-of-the-art integrated system approaches that include metabolomics, lipidomics, exposomics, tissue imaging mass spectrometry, deep-learning, as well as human cohorts and genetically-engineered mouse models in order to elucidate mechanisms, and to discover biomarkers and novel interventions for human disease.

At Yale he is the director of the NIEHS-funded P42 Superfund Research Center and an NIAAA-funded R24- Metabolomic Resource Center. He is the co-leader of the (to be established) Yale Olive Sciences and Health Institute, and of the (to be established) Center of Excellence on Environmental Sciences and Public Health as a collaboration between Yale and National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece.

Dr. Vasiliou has published over 250 papers (>17,000 citations and h-index of 67; Google Scholar) and edited three books on Alcohol and Cancer. Dr. Vasiliou is the editor of Human Genomics and serves on the editorial boards of several toxicology and visual sciences journals.

Professor Vasiliou is committed to training the next generation of scientists. At the University of Colorado he was the Director of the Environmental and Molecular Toxicology Graduate Program for 15 years. At Yale he leads an NIAAA-funded T32 Translational Alcohol Research Program (TARP) Training Program for post-doctoral fellows, and an NIHES -funded R25 Summer Research Experience in Environmental Health (SREEH) Training Program that introduce undergraduate students in Connecticut (CT) to Environmental Health Research. Dr. Vasiliou has trained mentored and advised more than 60 trainees ranging from MPH and PhD students to postdoctoral fellows and junior faculties.