Dr. Chrousos is Professor of Pediatrics and Endocrinology Emeritus and Director of the University Research Institute on Maternal and Child Health and Precision Medicine at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (NKUA) School of Medicine, Athens, Greece. He holds the UNESCO Chair on Adolescent Health Care and is a Senior Investigator at the Biomedical Research Foundation of the Academy of Athens. Formerly, he was Chief of the Pediatric and Reproductive Endocrinology Branch at the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland and Chairman of the First Department of Pediatrics at the NKUA.
Dr. Chrousos’ research program has focused on the Biology and Medicine of Stress, the Physiology and Pathophysiology of the Hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) Axis and the molecular actions of glucocorticoids. Throughout his carrier he has worked on acute and chronic adaptations to changes in exogenous/endogenous states and conditions, which represent, perhaps, the most central feature of life, and on the neuroendocrine stress system, which is pivotal to implementation of these processes. He examined the key roles of stress mediators, not only in endocrine, behavioral and physical/energetic adaptations, but also as major pathogenic factors, responsible for the most important pathologies of today’s societies, the high impact and cost “chronic non-communicable disorders”, which account for the majority of morbidity and mortality plaguing contemporary humanity. He also has made contributions to the understanding of the molecular actions of glucocorticoids and of their effects on the genome and epigenome, which underlie their involvement in human physiology and pathophysiology. He elucidated crucial aspects of the intensive molecular dialogue between the glucocorticoid and other major cell signaling systems and described novel diseases of the tissue sensitivity to glucocorticoids. Dr. Chrousos’s studies have contributed to the way we study, diagnose, classify and treat classic endocrine disorders of the HPA axis, including Cushing syndrome and Addison disease. Dr. Chrousos has performed biomedical research from the basic molecular/cellular level, to translational investigation, to the diagnosis, treatment and management of diseases. His experimental work and the concepts he has advanced over the years have opened new horizons in our understanding of a wide spectrum of human complex disorders related to stress, including melancholic, atypical, seasonal and postpartum depression, the post-traumatic stress disorder, the eating disorders, the very prevalent obesity/osteosarcopenia/metabolic syndrome, the psychosomatic diseases, sleep disorders, such as insomnia and sleep apnea, and the inflammatory/autoimmune and allergic diseases. His contributions to Biomedical Science and Medicine span and influence a broad range of medical disciplines, including Pediatrics, Internal Medicine, Psychiatry, Psychology, Rheumatology, Allergy, Sleep Medicine, Psychosomatic Medicine, Reproduction, Surgery, and Oncology.
According to Google Scholar (April 2020), his work has been cited over 150,000 times (H-index 190), making him one of the 100 most cited physician-scientists in the world. According to ISI, he is highly cited in both Clinical Medicine and Biology and Biochemistry and the top cited clinical endocrinologist in the world. He is a member of the European Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters Academia Europaea and the US National Academy of Medicine.
Dr. Chrousos has received numerous national and international awards and has given many named lectures in the USA, Europe, Latin America and Japan. His awards include the 1987 Richard E. Weitzman Memorial Award of the US Endocrine Society, the 1992 Superior Service Award of the U.S. Public Health Service, the 1997 Clinical Investigator Award of the US Endocrine Society, the 1997 Hans Selye Award of the Hans Selye Foundation, Montreal, Canada, the 1999 Pharmacia-Upjohn International First Prize of the US Endocrine Society, the 1999 Novera Herbert Spector Award of the International Society for Neuroimmunomodulation, Lugano, Switzerland, the 2000 Henning Andersen Prize, of the European Society for Pediatric Endocrinology, Brussels, Belgium, the 2002 Sir Edward Sharpey-Schafer Medal of the British Endocrine Societies, the 2004 Lifetime Achievement Award of the International Society for Psycho-Neuro-Endocrinology, Glasgow, UK, the 2007 Henning Andersen Prize of the European Society for Pediatric Endocrinology, Helsinki, Finland, and the 2008 Geoffrey Harris Prize in Neuroendocrinology of the European Society of Endocrinology, Berlin, Germany. Ηe was honored with the 2011 Aristeion Bodossaki Award, the highest distinction for accomplishment in the Sciences in Greece. In 2012, he received the Albert Struyvenberg Medal of the European Society of Clinical Investigation (ESCI). He is a distinguished visiting scientist at the Eunice Kennedy Shriver NICHD, NIH, Bethesda MD, USA. He served as Board Member and President of the International Society of Neuroimmunomodulation, the European Society of Clinical Investigation and the European Society of Clinical Investigation. In 2011, he held the John Kluge Distinguished Chair in Technology and Society at the US Library of Congress. In 2014, he received the highest honor of the US Endocrine Society, the Fred Conrad Koch Award.
He is a Doctor Honoris Causa of the University of Liege, Liege, Belgium (2003), Universita Politechnica delle Marche, Ancona, Italy (2006) and University of Patras, Patras, Greece (2011). He is an Honorary Professor of the University of Warwick, Coventry, UK, St. Petersburg State Pediatric Medical University, St. Petersburg, Russia and Xi’an Medical University, Xi’an, China, Democritean University of Thrace, Greece. Dr. Chrousos was inducted as a Master of both the American College of Endocrinology and the American College of Physicians and a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians. He is an elected member of the American Society for Clinical Research, the Association of American Physicians, the European Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters Academia Europaea and the US National Academy of Medicine.
At the NIH, Dr. Chrousos run one of the leading pediatric endocrine training programs in the world and fostered the careers of over 60 distinguished, award-winning, world-class physician-scientists and basic scientists. After a distinguished career in the Intramural Program of the NIH, where he made seminal contributions and trained a generation of international leaders in Biomedical Research, Dr. Chrousos returned to Greece and assumed leadership roles in Greek and European Medicine and Academia. He served as Board Member and President of the International Society of Neuroimmunomodulation, the European Society of Clinical Investigation and the European Society of Pediatric Endocrinology.
In Greece, Dr. Chrousos directed the most prestigious Department of Pediatrics and has had major impact on the way Pediatrics and Endocrinology are practiced. He helped develop new national growth curves, initiated a national campaign against childhood obesity, chaired the National Council on Breast Feeding, started a national successful campaign for breast feeding (UNICEF Award 2011), initiated a longitudinal study of children conceived by assisted reproductive technologies and discovered significant epigenetic effects of these procedures on cardiometabolic health (Academy of Athens Award 2011), established two graduate programs “Pediatric and Nursing Research”, and “Science of Stress and Health Promotion”, established the first Adolescent Medicine Program in the country and helped with the founding of a now thriving biomedical research institute (Biomedical Research Foundation of the Academy of Athens). In 2010, the prototypic Adolescent Medicine Program that he established was recognized as the UNESCO Chair in Adolescent Health Care. He served as member and vice-President of the Greek National Council of Research and Technology. He founded the Hellenic College of Pediatrics, the Hellenic Society of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, the Institute of Stress Biology and Medicine, and the NGO “Health for All” for the support of vulnerable populations in Greece.