I run five organizations. I live in Cyprus with 92 cats. I research how trace metals shape pathogenic bacteria. I build food safety certification standards used by manufacturers worldwide. I am building a platform to connect animal sanctuaries with sponsors. And I got here because conventional medicine failed me.
The health crisis that started everything
After receiving multiple diagnoses and finding conventional treatment inadequate, I started doing my own research. What I found was a body of literature connecting the microbiome to virtually every chronic condition I was dealing with, but no one was translating that research into actionable clinical guidance. The interventions that existed were generic (take a probiotic, eat more fiber) and disconnected from the specificity that the research actually demanded.
I became the first known person to undergo fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) for Celiac Disease. The result was what I consider 98-99% recovery from a condition that conventional medicine treats as permanent and irreversible. That experience did two things: it validated that microbiome-targeted interventions could work for conditions far beyond the narrow indications they were approved for, and it made me deeply skeptical of the gap between what research shows and what patients actually receive.
From patient to researcher
That skepticism became my career. I founded the Microbiome Medicine Database (microbiomemedicine.com) to formalize disease-associated microbiome patterns through what I call Major Microbial Associations (MMAs). The database is designed for clinicians and researchers who need to know which taxa are elevated or reduced in specific conditions, and which interventions have been shown to shift those patterns back toward health.
The validation framework I developed requires dual alignment: an intervention must both restore the taxa altered in a disease-specific microbiome signature and yield measurable clinical improvement. When both criteria are met, the intervention is validated as a Microbiome-Targeted Intervention (MBTI) and the underlying microbiome signature is simultaneously confirmed. This co-validation approach is what distinguishes the framework from approaches that treat microbiome data as correlational curiosities.
Microbial metallomics
My research trajectory led me to an observation that most microbiome researchers were overlooking: the role of trace metals in shaping which bacteria survive and thrive. Pathogenic bacteria like Helicobacter pylori depend on nickel for their most critical virulence factors (urease, hydrogenase), yet nickel is not required by human host cells. This creates a therapeutic target that conventional antimicrobial approaches completely miss.
I introduced microbial metallomics as a framework integrating trace metal analysis into microbiome research. The work examines how bacteria acquire, transport, store, and utilize metals like nickel, zinc, iron, cadmium, lead, and aluminum, and how environmental heavy metal contamination selects for the very pathogens that cause chronic disease. The Journal of Food Metallomics (microbialmetallomics.com) publishes this work.
The Paleo Foundation and HMTc
Before the microbiome research consumed my working life, I had already been building the Paleo Foundation for over a decade. What started as a certification body for Paleo, Keto, and Grain-Free products evolved into something broader as I recognized that the food system's heavy metal contamination problem was directly connected to the microbial selection pressures I was studying.
The Heavy Metal Tested and Certified (HMTc) program establishes category-specific contaminant limits for food, supplements, and personal care products. It is designed to keep brands continuously improving without turning normal variability into a commercial catastrophe, while ensuring that any product bearing the mark is supported as evidence under a defined surveillance protocol. The standards use ALARA-based principles and statistical risk matrices that I developed specifically for this purpose.
Tinies and the sanctuary
I live in Parekklisia, Cyprus, near RAF Akrotiri, where I run Gardens of St. Gertrude, a cat sanctuary caring for 92 cats. The operational reality of running a sanctuary is that fundraising tools designed for general nonprofits fail spectacularly when applied to the specific needs of animal rescue. Sanctuaries need sponsor-to-animal matching, recurring micro-donations, transparent care reporting, and discovery mechanisms that connect them with supporters globally.
That gap is why I built Tinies (tinies.app) from scratch using Cursor and Claude, with no prior coding experience. The platform connects animal sanctuaries with sponsors and supporters. It is built on Next.js 14, Supabase, and Vercel, and represents my belief that if a job can be done by AI, it should be done by AI.
How I work
My foundational operating principle, held for over a decade, is that if a job can be done by AI, it should be done by AI. This applies to every role, including my own. Humans shift to oversight of AI systems. This is not a philosophical position; it is the operational reality across all five of my organizations.
I approach complex problems with systems thinking over formulas. I use the Bradford Hill criteria to bridge translational gaps. I challenge causal reductionism wherever I find it. And I have a named output class called STOP (Suggested Termination Of Practice) for recommending that specific medical interventions be discontinued based on emerging evidence that they are ineffective, harmful, or counterproductive.
The five entities
Everything I do rolls up into five organizations:
Paleo Foundation (paleofoundation.com): Food certification standards for Paleo, Keto, Grain-Free, and HMTc programs. Microbiome Medicine (microbiomemedicine.com): The clinician-facing database formalizing disease-associated microbiome patterns and intervention validation. Journal of Food Metallomics (microbialmetallomics.com): Research integrating trace metal analysis into microbiome science. Tinies (tinies.app): The platform connecting animal sanctuaries with sponsors. Gardens of St. Gertrude (gardensofstgertrude.com): The cat sanctuary in Cyprus.
What I am available for
Advisory board positions. Research collaboration in microbiome science, microbial metallomics, and food safety. Speaking engagements on microbiome-targeted interventions, heavy metal certification, and systems thinking in translational medicine. Consulting on food safety certification program design. If you are interested in working together, please reach out through the contact page.