John Ioannidis
John P. A. Ioannidis (born 1965) is a Greek-American physician-scientist and professor at Stanford University, specializing in meta-research, evidence-based medicine, epidemiology, and the appraisal of scientific reliability.[1] Born in New York City and raised in Athens, he earned his MD from the National University of Athens in 1990 as top-ranked graduate and a DSc in biopathology in 1996, followed by training in internal medicine and infectious diseases at Harvard and Tufts.[1] Since 2010, he has held professorships in medicine, epidemiology and population health, and biomedical data science at Stanford, while co-directing the Meta-Research Innovation Center (METRICS) and directing the Stanford Prevention Research Center.[1][2] Ioannidis's meta-research has systematically exposed flaws in biomedical and clinical studies, including low statistical power, publication bias, and conflicts of interest that inflate false positives and undermine reproducibility.[3] His landmark 2005 paper, Why Most Published Research Findings Are False, mathematically demonstrated that under common research conditions—small studies, low prior probability of hypotheses, and flexible analyses—most positive findings represent false discoveries rather than true effects, reshaping debates on scientific credibility.[3] This work, cited over 10,000 times, has catalyzed initiatives to enhance research rigor, such as improved trial reporting standards like CONSORT and SPIRIT updates.[4][1] With over 1,000 peer-reviewed publications and recognition as one of the most cited scientists globally, Ioannidis has advanced evidence synthesis, clinical trial methodology, and large-scale epidemiological analyses, earning awards including the European Award for Excellence in Clinical Science (2007) and election to the National Academy of Medicine (2018).[1][4] His application of these principles to public health challenges, such as meta-analyses of COVID-19 infection fatality rates revealing orders-of-magnitude variability and generally lower risks than early projections, underscored the perils of hasty policy-making absent robust data.[5][6]