Kyriacos A. Athanasiou has addressed significant societal needs through the development of life-saving technologies. He is a Distinguished Professor at the University of California, Irvine. In addition to being a faculty member in Biomedical Engineering, he is also the holder of the Henry Samueli Chair and the Director of DELTAi (Driving Engineering and Lifescience Translational Advances at Irvine). He has served as faculty member at the University of Texas, Rice University, and the University of California (first at Davis and now at Irvine). He has established one of the most recognized research groups in tissue engineering and regeneration. His group has demonstrated the fabrication of cartilage with properties on par with native tissue (published in Nature Materials), identified hypoxia and crosslinking agents as pivotal factors in the development of musculoskeletal tissues (published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science), and provided the first robust evidence of healing jaw joint or TMJ defects (published in Science Translational Medicine) using his scaffold-free self-assembling process (published in Science). In addition to his academic interests, he has been involved with effecting the translation of devices and instruments into clinical use and commercialization. He has founded six different start-up companies that have collectively brought to the market 15 FDA-approved products
He obtained his PhD in Bioengineering (Mechanical Engineering) from Columbia University in 1989. He has published over 800 peer-reviewed publications, including 380 papers, 360 conference proceedings or abstracts, 20 books, and multiple patents. He has also served as President of the Biomedical Engineering Society (the largest organization of biomedical engineers and bioengineers in the world), and as the Editor-in-Chief of the Annals of Biomedical Engineering, the flagship journal of BMES. His list of awards includes the Nemitsas Prize (Cyprus’ largest award, presented by the President of Cyprus), HR Lissner Medal from the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (the top award for bioengineers), Savio L-Y. Woo Medal for Translational Biomechanics from ASME, Distinguished Service Award from BMES, Wall Street Journal’s Innovation Award, Thomas A. Edison Patent Award from ASME, Hershel Rich Outstanding Invention Award, Marshal Urist Award for Excellence in Tissue Regeneration Research from the Orthopaedic Research Society, Van Mow Medal from ASME, Imagineer Award from the Mind Science Foundation, and Young Scientist Award from the American Society of Biomechanics. Other awards include the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Beall Family Foundation, UCI Applied Innovation (the award also included a “Certificate of Special Congressional Recognition” by the US Congress and citations by the California Legislature Assembly and the California Senate); Faculty Excellence in Research (Senior Award) from the Samueli School of Engineering; High Tech Innovation Award from OCTANe; and Innovator of the Year Award from the UCI Samueli School of Engineering. He is a Fellow of BMES, AAAS, AIMBE, and ASME. Every year since 2018, the “Athanasiou Awards” are given at the annual BMES meeting to graduate students and postdoctoral fellows for the best published papers. In 2023, the “Athanasiou Medal” will be given annually to individuals who have made outstanding contributions to the field of biomedical engineering with particular focus on translation. He was elected to the National Academy of Medicine in 2020 and the National Academy of Inventors in 2014.