Stavros Maurakis is a Ph.D. candidate at Georgia State University's Institute for Biomedical Sciences. He is currently studying outer-membrane metal transporters in the human pathogen Neisseria gonorrhoeae under the mentorship of Dr. Cynthia Cornelissen.
Stavros earned his B.S. in microbiology and immunology from Virginia Tech, where he graduated summa cum laude. After graduation, he worked as a chemical R&D technician for two years before joining Dr. Cornelissen's laboratory at Virginia Commonwealth University to pursue his M.S. degree, which he received with high honors in 2019. During his training, Stavros identified the host target for one of the key outer-membrane metal transporters in Neisseria gonorrhoeae, which has shown potential as a key virulence factor during human infections.
In 2019, the Cornelissen lab relocated to the Georgia State University Institute for Biomedical Sciences, where Stavros is now pursuing his Ph.D. His research, combined with the efforts of his lab-mates and their collaborators, is aimed at developing the world's first effective vaccine for gonorrhea.
