Panos Papapanou

I was appointed Professor of Periodontology at the Department of Dental Medicine at Karolinska Institutet on October 1st, 2026. I have served as Director of the Division of Periodontics, as Chair of the Section of Oral, Diagnostic and Rehabilitation Sciences and as Vice Dean for Global Engagement and Strategic Initiatives at Columbia University in New York, where I worked for 28 years.  I earned DDS degrees from the University of Athens (1979-1984) and Columbia University (1998-2001), a PhD from Göteborg University (1985-1989), and received post-doctoral training in Oral Microbiology at the Forsyth Institute in Boston (1992-1993). My research encompasses studies of the epidemiology of periodontal disease, the assessment of microbial and host-derived risk factors, the pathobiology of periodontitis, and its role as a general health stressor. I am the recipient of several international awards, including the Yngve Ericsson Prize in Prophylactic Dentistry Research from the Swedish Patent Revenue Fund (2016), the Distinguished Scientist Award for Basic Research in Periodontal Disease from the International Association for Dental Research (2017), and the International Research Prize by the Swedish Dental Association (2021). In 2025, I was elected Corresponding Member of the Academy of Athens. I was the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Clinical Periodontology (2021-2026), have published ≈250 original manuscripts and book chapters and have a h-index of 92 with >49, 900 citations.