dr. ir. Dimitri Diavatopoulos

Over Dimitri Diavatopoulos

Dimitri Diavatopoulos is Assistant Professor at the Laboratory of Medical Immunology and is affiliated with the Radboud Center for Infectious Diseases. Dr. Diavatopoulos studied Bioprocess Engineering at Wageningen University, after which he obtained his PhD at Utrecht University, where he started his work on Bordetella pertussis. He has held postdoctoral positions at the University of Melbourne, where he worked on the immunology of influenza-pneumococcal co-infections and at the Radboud University Medical Center.

Dr. Diavatopoulos currently heads a research group focusing on understanding how immune function and memory is (re)programmed during life, with a specific focus on the role of innate immunity during vaccination and infection. Current projects include the establishment of controlled human infection models for S. pneumoniae and B. pertussis and single-cell RNA-seq analysis of index-sorted immune cells. He has initiated and is Work Package leader in the PERISCOPE project, a public-private consortium aimed at accelerating the development, evaluation and registration of novel pertussis vaccines. Dr. Diavatopoulos is Chair of the Vaccinology Division of the Royal Dutch Society of Microbiology (KNVM). Dr. Diavatopoulos also has a part-time appointment at the National Institute of Public Health and the Environment (RIVM).