Nadia Kontogianni

Research technician

Nadia completed a BSc in Biological Sciences at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens and an Msc in Healthcare Management from the Open University of Cyprus. She has worked at the National Centre for Scientific Research 'Demokritos" in Athens, Greece as a research assistant and at the University of Thessally, Greece as part of an EU network looking at children's susceptibility and exposure to environmental genotoxicants. Nadia also worked for 7 years as a clinical biologist in the Microbiology and Haematology department of “Medisyn, Cooperative of Laboratory Medical Doctors”, diagnostic institute in Athens.

Nadia is working as a research technician in LSTM since 2015. She has worked in tuberculosis (TB) projects on drug resistance in TB, in TB REACH and EDCTP projects on tuberculosis research as a collaboration of LSTM with Nigeria, Ethiopia, Moldova and Spain. The aims of the projects are to develop and evaluate rapid and accurate diagnostic approaches for tuberculosis. Additionally, since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic she is also working on the COVID research, on FASTER, AGILE and FIND projects.

Nadia is a member of LUG meetings: being part of this forum and helping on the effective running of laboratories. LIV-TB meeting co-ordinator: take part in monthly LIV-TB meetings and alongside Tom Wingfield help and organise these meetings.

Selected recent presentations/meetings:

50th Union conference in Hyderabad, India. 29 October- 3 November 2019: Oral presentation on “OMNIgene and PrimeStore transport media for sputum samples. Can we skip the cold chain?” - data part of the EDCTP work in Nigeria.

49th Union conference in the Hague, The Netherlands. 24-27 October 2018: Oral presentation on “Acute Phase Proteins and IP-10 as first step screening test for TB: could they increase the pre-test probability of a follow-on test?”

Selected publications

  • Accuracy of the Mologic COVID-19 rapid antigen test: a prospective multi-centre analytical and clinical evaluation. Ana I Cubas-Atienzar, Fiona Bell, Rachel L. Byrne, Kate Buist, David J. Clark, Michael Cocozza, Andrea M. Collins, Luis E. Cuevas, Annelyse Duvoix, Nicholas Easom, Thomas Edwards, Daniella M. Ferreira, Tom Fletcher, Elisabetta Groppelli, Angela Hyder-Wright, Ewelina Kadamus, Daniela E. Kirwan, Konstantina Kontogianni, Sanjeev Krishna, Diana Kluczna, Julian Mark, Josephine Mensah-Kane, Elisha Miller, Elena Mitsi, Donna Norton, Emma O'Connor, Sophie I. Owen, Tim Planche, Samuel Shelley, Henry M. Staines, David Tate, Caitlin R. Thompson, Gemma Walker, Christopher T. Williams, Dominic Wooding, Joseph R. A. Fitchett, Emily R. Adams. Wellcome Open Research 2021, 6:132

    Lateral flow antigen tests can sensitively detect live cultured virus of the SARS-CoV-2 B.1.1.7 lineage. Konstantina Kontogianni, Ana I.Cubas-Atienzar. Dominic Wooding, Kate Buist, Caitlin R.Thomson, Christopher T.Williams, Lisa Baldwin, Camille, Escadafal, Jilian A. Sacks, Emily R. Adams, Thomas Edwards. Journal of Infection. May 29, 2021

    Limit of detection in different matrices of nineteen commercially available rapid antigen tests for the detection of SARS-CoV-2. Ana I. Cubas-Atienzar, Konstantina Kontogianni, Thomas Edwards, Dominic Wooding, Kate Buist, Caitlin R. Thompson, Christopher T. Williams, Edward I Patterson, Grant Hughes, Lisa Baldwin, Camille Escadafal, Jilian A. Sacks, Emily R. Adams. March 22, 2021. medRxiv

    Systematic Review of Pooling Sputum as an Efficient Method for Xpert MTB/RIF Tuberculosis Testing during COVID-19 Pandemic. Luis E. Cuevas, Victor S. Santos, Shirley Verônica Melo Almeida Lima, Konstantina Kontogianni, John S. Bimba, Vibol Iem, Jose Dominguez, Emily Adams, Ana Cubas Atienzar, Thomas Edwards, S. Bertel Squire, Patricia J. Hall, Jacob Creswell. Emerging Infectious Diseases. March 2021, Vol. 27, No. 3.

    PrimeStore MTM and OMNIgene Sputum for the Preservation of Sputum for Xpert MTB/RIF testing in Nigeria. John S. Bemba, Lovett Lawson, Konstantina Kontogianni, Thomas Edwards, Bassey Emanna Ekpenyong, James Dodd, Emily R. Adams, Derek J Sloan, Jacob Creswell, Jose Dominguez, Luis E Cuevas. J Clin Med. 2019 Dec 4; 8 (12):2146

    Acute phase proteins and IP-10 as triage tests for the diagnosis of tuberculosis: systematic review and meta-analysis. V.S.Santos, D.Goletti, K.Kontogianni, E.R.Adams, B. Molina-Moya, J.Dominguez, V.Crudu, P.R.S. Martins-Filho, M.ruhwald, L.Lawson, J.S.Bimba, A.L. Garcia Basteiro, L. Petrone, B.S.Kabeer, K.Reither, L.E. Cuevas. Clinical Microbiology and Infection. Feb 2019. Volume 25, Issue 2, P. 169-177