The Coastal and Marine Research Laboratory of FORTH, carried out field surveys at the coastal zone of the Municipality of Chersonissos on Friday 11 December 2020, to have an overview of the situation of the areas that were affected by the recent storm, in the framework of its collaboration with the Directorate for Environment and Hydro-economy of the Region of Crete.

The unprecedented rainfall of high amount and intensity that hit the island of Crete during the 9-10th of November, 2020 had as a result the occurrence of extensive floods and landslides in residential and rural areas of the island. Among the severely affected areas was the Regional Unit of Rethymno, with the effects of severe weather on both infrastructures (damages to constructions and road network) and in its primary sector (destruction of crops) being characterized as incalculable.

Prof. Athanasios Nenes, Affiliated Scientist of FORTH/ICE-HT, Coordinating Member of the Center for the Study of Air Quality and Climate Change (C-STACC) and Professor at the School of Architecture, Civil and Environmental Engineering, EPFL, Lausanne, Switzerland was elected by the American Geophysical Union (AGU) Fellows Committee as a member of the 2020 class of AGU Fellows.

Α big European research project on developing new software tools for the accurate prognosis and precise treatment of prostate cancer, will be coordinated by Prof. Manolis Tsiknakis, Affiliated Professor at the Institute of Computer Science (ICS) of FORTH.

As announced today in Brussels, Nektarios Tavernarakis, Chairman of the Board of Directors at the Foundation for Research and Technology – Hellas (FORTH), and Professor at the Medical School of the University of Crete, was unanimously elected Vice President of the European Research Council (ERC).

The European Geoscience Union (EGU) will award Prof. Spyros Pandis the medal Vilhelm Bjerknes for 2021. Prof. Pandis is a collaborating faculty member of FORTH/ICE-HT (Institute of Chemical Engineering Sciences) and professor at the Department of Chemical Engineering of the University of Patras. This medal is awarded for significant disciplinary contributions in the Earth, planetary and space sciences and the ceremony will be held during the EGU Annual Assembly, 25-30 April 2021.

A new spin-off company under the name “Biomimetic” was created leveraging patented technology developed at the Institute of Electronic Structure and Laser (IESL, www.iesl.forth.gr) of the Foundation for Research and Technology-Hellas (www.forth.gr). The company was founded by the Research Director Dr. Emmanuel Stratakis, together with FORTH research personnel Dr. Evangelos Skoulas, Mr. Andreas Lemonis, Mr. Antonis Papadopoulos and Mr. Alexandros Mimidis, as co-founders. The company raised 900.000€ seed funding by Big Pi Ventures (https://bigpi.vc/), one of the funds of EquiFund supported by the European Investment Fund (EIF). It is the second spin-off company of IESL that is financed by Big Pi within the last six months.

Biosensors lab of FORTH(http://biosensorslab.biology.uoc.gr/) has developed a novel molecular diagnostic method for the detection of nucleic acids at the point-of-care. The method exploits a newly designed portable 3D-printed device and a smartphone to perform isothermal amplification and real-time quantitative colorimetric detection of the target analyte. The simplicity of the methodology, rapid analysis time (<30 min) and affordable cost make it ideal for non-trained users at the point-of-need and in both the developed and resource limited countries. Clinical validation of the device with patients’ samples, for infectious diseases (COVID-19) and cancer-mutations (BRAF V600E) detection, demonstrated excellent performance compared to standard methods.

Dr Georgios Z. Papadakis, collaborating researcher of the Institute of Computer Science (ICS) of the Foundation for Research and Technology – Hellas (FORTH), had a major contribution on a study published on September 10th 2020, in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM), in collaboration with scientists from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, Maryland, USA.

Dr. Angelina Kouroubali, collaborating researcher of the Institute of Computer Science (ICS) of the Foundation for Research and Technology – Hellas (FORTH), has been elected as a Fellow in the International Academy of Health Sciences Informatics. The International Academy of Health Sciences Informatics (IAHSI, https://imia-medinfo.org/wp/iahsi).)