Niki Moutsopoulos is a clinical scientist and immunologist who serves as a Senior Investigator at the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (NIDCR), a division of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in the United States. She is currently the Chief of the Oral Immunity and Inflammation Section.
Moutsopoulos’s research focuses on the intersection of oral health, immunology, and microbiology. Her work is primarily concerned with the host-microbial interactions at the oral mucosa and the underlying mechanisms that lead to inflammatory conditions such as periodontitis. A significant portion of her research program utilizes a "bedside-to-bench" approach, studying patients with rare genetic primary immunodeficiencies to gain insights into common oral inflammatory diseases.
One of her notable scientific contributions involves the study of Leukocyte Adhesion Deficiency type I (LAD-1). Her research helped identify that the severe periodontal bone loss associated with this condition is driven by an overactive IL-23/IL-17 immune pathway rather than by a lack of neutrophil surveillance alone. This discovery provided a mechanistic understanding of oral inflammation in these patients and suggested new therapeutic targets for treatment.
Moutsopoulos earned her Doctor of Dental Surgery (DDS) degree from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece. She subsequently moved to the United States, where she earned a PhD in Immunology from the University of Maryland and completed specialized clinical training in periodontology. She is a widely published author in peer-reviewed scientific journals, including Nature Medicine, Science Translational Medicine, and the Journal of Clinical Investigation. Her work continues to investigate how the systemic immune system regulates oral mucosal homeostasis and the role of the microbiome in triggering inflammatory responses.