Melpo Christofidou-Solomidou, Ph.D.

Research Associate Professor of Medicine

University of Pennsylvania Medical Center
Pulmonary, Allergy & Critical Care Division
Abramson Research Center - Room 1016F
3615 Civic Center Boulevard
Philadelphia, PA 19104-4318
tel.: (215) 573-9917
fax: (215) 573-4469
email: melpo@mail.med.upenn.edu

Education:

• BSc: State University of New York (SUNY) at Stony Brook.
• Diplom Biologie: University of Bonn, Germany
• PhD: University of Bonn, Germany
• Post-doctoral Fellowship: Albany Medical College (NY) and the University of Pennsylvania

The research focus of Dr. Christofidou-Solomidou involves the “Investigation of Novel Antioxidant Approaches to Acute and Chronic Lung Disease” with a special interest in pulmonary inflammation, lung fibrosis and cell adhesion molecule regulation/expression. Projects involve the development of oxidant-induced acute and chronic lung injury animal models for the study of diseases such as ARDS, sepsis, radiation induced pneumonitis/fibrosis, and oxygen toxicity. Specific projects focus on the development of antioxidant methodologies such as immune conjugates for the targeting of anti-oxidant enzymes such as Catalase and Superoxide Dismutase to the pulmonary endothelium using antibodies to endothelial antigens. Recent work extends to the use of dietary alternative antioxidant agents such as curcumin, flaxseed or phenolic compounds in ameliorating acute and chronic oxidative lung disease.

Christofidou-Solomidou M., and Vladimir Muzykantov: Antioxidant Approaches to lung disease (Review). Treatments in Respiratory Medicine; 5 (1): 47-78, 2006.

Kinniry P, Amrani Y, Vachani A, Solomides CC, Arguiri E, Workman A, Carter J and Christofidou-Solomidou M: Dietary Flaxseed Supplementation Ameliorates Inflammation And Oxidative Tissue Damage In Experimental Models of Acute Lung Injury In Mice. Journal of Nutrition, 136 (6), p.1545-51,2006.

Kinniry P, Pick J, Stephens R, Jain D, Solomides CC, Niven R, Segal R and Christofidou-Solomidou M: KL4-Surfactant Prevents Hyperoxic and LPS-Induced Lung Injury in Mice. Pediatr Pulmonol., 41(10):916-28, 2006.

Perkowski S, Scherpereel A, Murciano J-C, Arguiri E, Solomides CC, Albelda SM, Muzykantov VR and Christofidou-Solomidou M: Dissociation between alveolar transmigration of neutrophils and lung injury in hyperoxia. In Press, Am.J.Physiol. Lung Mol.Cell.Physiol, 2006.

Machtay M, A. Scherpereel, J. Santiago, James Lee, J McDonough, P Kinniry, E Arguiri, J. Sun,
K. Cengel, C.C. Solomides and M. Christofidou-Solomidou: Systemic Polyethylene Glycol-Modified (PEGylated) -Superoxide Dismutase and -Catalase Mixture Attenuates Radiation Pulmonary Fibrosis In The C57bl/6 Mouse. Radiotherapy & Oncology, In Press, 2006.

Albelda SM, Lau KC, Chien P, Huang ZY, Arguiri E, Bohen A, Sun J, Billet JA, Christofidou-Solomidou M, Indik ZK, Schreiber AD.: Role for Platelet-Endothelial Cell Adhesion Molecule-1 (PECAM) in Macrophage Fc{gamma} Receptor Function. Am.J.Respir.Cell Mol.Biol. 31(2):246-255, 2004.