Leondios G. Kostrikis

Leondios G. Kostrikis (born 1964) is a Cypriot biochemist and scientist from Cyprus and a Professor of Biological Sciences at the University of Cyprus.

Kostrikis received his scientific education in biochemistry from New York University. In 1987, he received his B.Sc. degree, supported by a Fulbright Scholarship. In 1993, he received his Ph.D.

He then moved to Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center (ADARC) to do HIV research. In 1999, he was appointed Assistant Professor of Rockefeller University. In 2003, he returned to Cyprus. He became Head of Laboratory of Biotechnology and Molecular Virology and Professor of Biological Sciences at the University of Cyprus.

On 29 November 2021 following the emergence of COVID-19 Omicron variant, Kostrikis announced that a new aware of COVID-19 variant was the first reported by his Cypriot health research team from the University of Cyprus in Nicosia, so called "Deltacron". Most experts believe it was likely due to the result of a lab error, which is possible lab contamination involving Omicron fragments in a Delta specimen. Since then, many virologists have argued that it is most likely the result of a lab contamination, which purportedly shares specific properties with two different strains. Although Cypriot health research group was dubbed the supposed new variant, "Deltacron". Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove (head of W.H.O.'s COVID-19 Technical Leader), Richard Neher (head of Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology and associate professor of University of Basel), and other scientists, who challenged this announcement, saying a lab mistake is a more probable explanation for Cyprus lab's finding.

"Deltacron" phenomenon is reported by Dr. Kostrikis and the World Health Organization in January 2022. From the early summer of 2021 to the late summer of 2022, Kostrikis and his health research team in Cyprus are decided to start to tracking the hybrid outbreak in real time when public health experts uploaded the online databases, such as Worldometers and GISAID.

On 20 December 2021, Cypriot Health Ministry reports that Cyprus is now pre-dominant strain of COVID-19 Deltacron hybrid variant, a combination of Delta and Omicron variants, accounting for three-quarters of cases. As of 28 March 2022, a daily numbers of COVID-19 Deltacron hybrid infections in Cyprus exceeds 6,494 people for the first time since the pandemic begin.

Unfortunately, World Health Organization has warned that a new COVID-19 hybrid variant dubbed "Deltacron", has now ultimately spreading quickly, and then a pre-dominant strain as a "predictably concern", which has more transmissible and accounted 99.9% of COVID cases, and caused a huge infection waves, especially in a circulated parts of 23 Western countries (including America, Canada, Mexico, Britain, Ireland, France, Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Austria, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Iceland, Malta, Australia, and New Zealand), 9 South American countries, 26 Eastern European countries, and among others (including Barbados, Trinidad and Tobago, Jordan, Lebanon, Qatar, Vietnam, Thailand, and Laos). However, W.H.O. had worried announcement that a new hybrid variant has the potential to become a major problems in 72 countries. But in the whole world, there is no reason for predictably concerns as of now.

At some point, a few human beings and animals will be unlucky and they will be actually infected or reinfected and killed by two different variants at the same time, and when two different variants are in a single cell replicating at once, and it is not only that two different variants can invade the same cell in everyone's body by some randomly events. However, there's a change that they genetic material, and that is called a "recombination event". Hybrid variants are not uncommon or unique to COVID-19, as they occur often with influenza and tuberculosis viruses. When that happens, they can actually formed and merged a new hybrid variant. In this case of a two different types of hybrid variant: Delta variant as the core of virus, which is more dangerous; and Omicron variant as a spike protein, which is more transmissible.

This hybrid variant is expected given that a large number of circulation, an intense number of circulation that we saw with both Delta and Omicron mutations, and given the sheer number of changes and is similar to Original COVID-19 virus, as well as Alpha, Delta, Omicron, and other variants, but it was much easier for researchers, scientists, and public health professionals, who are still ongoing. However, as of result, COVID-19 Deltacron hybrid variant is now less severe disease and deaths and as well as not spreading as much as of now.